Xylaria Hill ex Schrank, Baier. Fl. (München) 1: 200 (1789)

Index Fungorum number: IF 5832; Facesoffungi number: FoF 000696; more than 670 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2020), 132 species with sequence data.

Type species – Xylaria hypoxylon (L.) Grev.

Notes – Mostly species of Xylaria are characterized by large stromata, cylindrical asci with long stipes, and ellipsoidal, dark ascospores in their sexual and geniculosporium-like asexual morphs (Ju & Rogers 1996, Stadler et al. 2013). Xylaria is a highly diversified genus, most likely exceeding 500 species (Peršoh et al. 2009). Most Xylaria species are saprobes growing on moist, decaying dicotyledonous wood and less often on monocotyledons, fruits, seeds, and fallen leaves. The endophytic species are common in tropical plants. Interestingly, the subgenus Pseudoxylaria is associated with termite nests, mainly macrotermitine termites (Visser et al. 2009, Hsieh et al. 2010). Based on rDNA sequence data, Arthroxylaria and Geniculisynnema were synonymized under Xylaria (Seifert et al. 2002, Okane & Nakagiri 2007, Réblová et al. 2016b). The significant variations in the characters of Xylaria species might be the result of many convergent evolution within the genus (Lee et al. 2000).

Species

  • Xylaria hypoxylon