Thursday 10 December 2015

Ceratostomella ampullasca

A lovely little Pyrenomycete, or Sordariomycete as it should be properly now I think, this one sticks up a spore cannon through the surface of the substrate. Though the above name is the one under which it can be found in Ellis and Ellis it has had a few names and is now called Natantiella ligneola. The genus name comes from the fact that the asci when mature float around freely in the perithecium.

Interestingly in the ascus below you can see many small oil drops inthe spores, but most of the mature spores when free seem to be bi-guttulate

From wikiipedia - "Sordariomycetes is a class of fungi in the subdivision Pezizomycotina (Ascomycota), consisting of 15 orders, 64 families, 1119 genera, and 10564 species." So there are about as many species of Sordariomycetes as there are of birds!






{New fungal genera, Tectonidula gen. nov. for Calosphaeria-like fungi with holoblastic-denticulate conidiogenesis and Natantiella gen. nov. for three species segregated from Ceratostomella.
Réblová M1, Stepánek V.
Author information
Abstract

Two morphologically similar groups of ascomycetes with globose to subglobose perithecia, elongate necks, unitunicate asci floating freely at maturity, and hyaline ascospores currently placed in Calosphaeria s. lat. and Ceratostomella s. lat., respectively, are studied. The Calosphaeria-like fungi have groups of perithecia growing between cortex and wood, arranged in circular groups with converging necks and piercing the cortex in a common point; the asci with a shallow apical ring and U- to horseshoe-shaped hyaline ascospores are compared with Calosphaeria pulchella, the type species of the genus. Conidiogenesis of the investigated Calosphaeria-like fungi is holoblastic-denticulate; ramichloridium-like and sporothrix-like conidiophores and conidia were formed in vitro. Ascospore and ascus morphology, structure of the ascal apex, ascogenous system, mode of conidiogenesis and the large subunit rRNA sequences of this group differ considerably from C. pulchella and both groups are unrelated. Thus a new genus, Tectonidula, is described with two accepted species, T. hippocrepida and T. fagi; they are separated by ascospore and ascus morphology and holoblastic-denticulate conidiogenesis from the core species of Calosphaeria. The placement of Tectonidula among perithecial ascomycetes is discussed. The relationship of Tectonidula with Barbatosphaeria and two ramichloridium-like hyphomycetous genera Rhodoveronaea and Myrmecridium is investigated. Three species formerly attributed to Ceratostomella are studied. The revision of the herbarium type specimen and fresh material of Ceratostomella ligneola revealed that it is conspecific with Ceratostomella ampullasca and Ceratostomella similis. The LSU phylogeny clearly separated C. ligneola from Ceratostomella s. str. and morphologically similar Lentomitella. On the basis of molecular sequence data and detailed comparison of morphology of asci, ascospores and ascogenous system the genus Natantiella is described for C. ligneola with C. ampullasca and C. similis as its synonyms. Natantiella produced sterile mycelium in vitro.}

Tuesday 8 December 2015