Pleosporales » Delitschiaceae

Delitschia

Delitschia M.E. Barr

Index Fungorum number: IF 1443

 

Saprobic on old herbivore dung or submerged wood. Sexual morph: Ascomata solitary or scattered, immersed to semi-immersed, globose to subglobose or subpyriform, often covered with dense, hyphoid hairs, semitransparent to brown or black, uniloculate, membranous to coriaceous, with a neck. Neck blackish, central, usually coriaceous, with a wide opening and a smooth or tuberculate to hairy surface. Peridium thick at the apex, thinner at the base. Pseudoparaphyses numerous, trabeculate, filiform, long, hyaline, septate, anastomosing and branching. Asci 4- to poly-spored, bitunicate, cylindrical to cylindro-clavate, short or long pedicellate. Ascospores partially overlapping, obliquely uniseriate, ellipsoid, reddish brown, 1-septate, cells often easily separable from each other, each cell with a full-length germ slit (Luck-Allen and Cain 1975; Hyde et al. 2013). Asexual morph: Undetermined.

 

Type species: Delitschia didyma Auersw. Hedwigia 5: 49 (1866)

 

Notes: Delitschia is characterized by usually fimicolous habit, with bitunicate asci, and pigmented, 1-septate ascospores, with an elongate germ slit in each cell (Luck- Allen and Cain 1975). Most taxa of this genus are coprophilous (Luck-Allen and Cain 1975), some are wood-inhabiting (Eaton and Jones 1970; Hyde and Steinke 1996) and three species were reported from freshwater habitats (see list below). It is reasonable to infer that the lignicolous freshwater taxa might phylogenetically separate from the coprophilous taxa. This cannot be confirmed until sequences of three freshwater species are available. Delitschia fasciatispora K.D. Hyde and D. palmietensis K.D. Hyde & Steinke have 8-spored asci, while they are 2-spored in D. bispora Eaton & E.B.G. Jones.

 

List of freshwater Delitschia species

Delitschia bispora Eaton & E.B.G. Jones

Delitschia fasciatispora K.D. Hyde

Delitschia palmietensis K.D. Hyde & Steinke

 

Key to freshwater Delitschia species (Dong et al. 2020)

1. Asci 2-spore......................................... D. bispora

1. Asci 8-spored....................................... 2

2. Ascospores with a wide dark brown central band.................. D. fasciatispora

2. Ascospores lack above characters........ D. palmietensis

 

References:

Dong, W., Wang, B., Hyde, K.D., McKenzie, E.H.C., Bhat, D.J et al. (2020) Freshwater Dothideomycetes. Fungal Diversity

Hyde K.D., Jones E.B.G., Liu J.K., Ariyawansa H. et al. (2013) Families of Dothideomycetes. Fungal Divers 63:1–313

Hyde K.D., Steinke T.S. (1996) Two new species of Delitschia from submerged wood. Mycoscience 37:99–102

Luck-Allen E.R., Cain R.F. (1975) Additions to the genus Delitschia. Canadian Journal of Botany 53:1827–1887

 

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