Rebentischia
Rebentischia P. Karst.
Index Fungorum number: IF 4658
Saprobic on decaying wood in terrestrial or submerged wood in freshwater habitats. Sexual morph: Ascomata solitary or clustered, immersed or erumpent to superficial, uniloculate, globose to subglobose, somewhat depressed, or ovoid, sometimes collapsed in age, apex blunt, black, coriaceous, ostiolate. Peridium soft, fleshy, often roughened by protruding cells or short hyphae, composed of pseudoparenchymatous cells, light to dark vinaceous brown externally, compressed, hyaline or vinaceous-tinged cells inwardly, pigmented encrust on the surface of outermost cells. Pseudoparaphyses numerous, cellular, flexuous, narrow, hyaline, septate, branched, anastomosing, persistent. Asci 8-spored, bitunicate, fissitunicate, cylindric-clavate, short pedicellate, apically thickened. Ascospores biseriate, elongate-obovoid or narrowly clavate, rounded at the apex, base tapering to a hyaline appendage, usually slightly curved, brownish to dark brown, transeptate, smooth, thin-walled (Barr 1980; Boonmee et al. 2014). Asexual morph: Coelomycetous. asteromella-like (Barr 1980). (Notes from Dong et al. 2020)
Type species: Rebentischia pomiformis P. Karst.
Notes: Rebentischia, typified by R. pomiformis, is characterized by darkly pigmented ascomata, elongate-obovoid ascospores with a base tapering to a hyaline appendage (Boonmee et al. 2014). Barr (1980) placed Rebentischia in Tubeufiaceae based on these characters, which was accepted by Rossman (1987), Lumbsch and Huhndorf (2010) and Boonmee et al. (2011). However, Boonmee et al. (2014) placed it in Pleosporales incertae sedis based on the darkened ascospores with a setiform basal appendage after re-examination of the holotype of R. pomiformis. The asexual morph is unknown with certainty, but probably is asteromella-like fungi that grow near the base of ascomata (Barr 1980).
Fourteen species are listed in Index Fungorum (2020), all of which are old species without any sequence data. Barr (1980) thought that there are only two valid entities, viz. Rebentischia massalongoi (Mont.) Sacc. and R. unicaudata (Berk. & Broome) Sacc. von Arx and Muller (1975) synonymized the type species R. pomiformis with R. massalongi, which was accepted by Boonmee et al. (2014).
The freshwater species Rebentischia unicaudata fits well with the generic concept of Rebentischia by dark ascomata, clavate asci and narrowly obovoid ascospores with a hyaline basal cell (Barr 1980). It is similar to the type species, but differs in the habitats (freshwater vs. terrestrial) and ascospores size (17–25(–30) × 4–6(–7.5) µm vs. 28–40 × 6–10 µm) (Barr 1980). (Description from Dong et al. 2020)
List of freshwater Rebentischia species
Rebentischia unicaudata (Berk. & Broome) Sacc., Syll. fung. (Abellini) 2: 12 (1883)
Basionym: Sphaeria unicaudata Berk. & Broome, Ann. Mag. nat. Hist., Ser. 33: 373 (1859)
Freshwater distribution: USA (Shearer and Crane 1986)
References
Barr ME (1980) On the family Tubeufiaceae (Pleosporales). Mycotaxon 12:137–167
Boonmee S, Zhang Y, Chomnunti P, Chukeatirote E, Tsui CKM, Bahkali AH, Hyde KD (2011) Revision of lignicolous Tubeufiaceae based on morphological reexamination and phylogenetic analysis. Fungal Divers 51:63–102
Dong W, Wang B, Hyde KD, McKenzie EHC, Raja HA, Tanaka K, Abdel-Wahab MA, Abdel-Aziz FA, Doilom M, Phookamsak R, Hongsanan S, Wanasinghe DN, Yu X-D, Wang G-N, Yang H, Yang J, Thambugala KM, Tian Q, Luo Z-L, Yang J-B, Miller AN, Fournier J, Boonmee S, Hu D-M, Nalumpang S, Zhang H (2020) Freshwater Dothideomycetes. Fungal Divers 105:319–575
Lumbsch HT, Huhndorf SM (2010) Myconet Volume 14. Part One. Outline of Ascomycota—2009. Part Two. Notes on Ascomycete Systematics. Nos. 4751–5113. Fieldiana Life Earth Sci 2010:1–64
Rossman AY (1987) The Tubeufiaceae and similar Loculoascomycetes. Myc Papers 157:1–71
Recent Genus
1Neochlamydotubeufia
Neohelicomyces
Recent Species
Neohelicomyces submersusNeohelicomyces hyalosporus
Neohelicomyces grandisporus