Nothophoma brennandiae Hern.-Restr., L. W. Hou, L. Cai & Crous, 2020

Hou, Lingwei, Hernandez-Restrepo, Margarita, Groenewald, Johannes Zacharias, Cai, Lei & Crous, Pedro W., 2020, Citizen science project reveals high diversity in Didymellaceae (Pleosporales, Dothideomycetes), MycoKeys 65, pp. 49-99 : 49

Nothophoma brennandiae Hern.-Restr., L. W. Hou, L. Cai & Crous sp. nov. Figure 6

Etymology.

brennandiae refers to Kristel Brennand who collected the soil sample from which the ex-type strain was isolated.

Typus.

The Netherlands. Limburg province, Ell, isolated from garden soil, Mar. 2017, K. Brennand (holotype designated here CBS H-24103, living ex-type culture CBS 145912 = JW 53011).

Conidiomata pycnidial, superficial to semi-immersed, solitary to confluent, globose to subglobose, irregularly-shaped with age, brown, setose, especially near the ostioles, 155-350 × 100-300 μm; with 1-4 papillate ostioles; pycnidial wall pseudoparenchymatous, 3-6 layers, 13.5-21.5 μm thick, outer layers composed of brown, flattened polygonal cells. Conidiogenous cells phialidic, hyaline, smooth, ampulliform or somewhat isodiametric, 3-5 × 5-8 μm. Conidia ellipsoidal, broadly ellipsoidal to oblong, straight, thick- and smooth-walled, hyaline becoming brown, aseptate, 3-8.5 × 1.5-3 μm, 1-6-guttulate, minute. Conidial matrix sepia to brown vinaceous.

Culture characteristics.

Colonies after 7 d at 25 °C, on OA reaching 50-55 mm diam, aerial mycelium scarce, spore mass with grease-like appearance, dark brick to sepia, cinnamon to the edge, abundant production of confluent pycnidia, margin entire; reverse concentric rings umber to cinnamon. On MEA reaching 47-50 mm diam, aerial mycelium scarce, spore mass with grease-like appearance, dark brick to sepia, cinnamon to the edge, abundant production of confluent pycnidia, margin entire; reverse concentric rings umber to cinnamon. On PDA reaching 50-55 mm diam, aerial mycelium moderate to scarce, cottony, buff, spore mass with grease-like appearance, dark brick, ochreous to the edge, margin entire; reverse concentric rings dark brick to cinnamon. NaOH spot test negative on OA.

Additional specimen examined.

The Netherlands. North Holland province, Amsterdam, isolated from garden soil, Mar. 2017, J. van Dijk, JW 1066.

Notes.

In the phylogenetic tree N. brennandiae was close to N. quercina and N. pruni (Figure 1 ). Morphologically, N. brennandiae can be distinguished from N. quercina by having setose conidiomata with up to 4 ostioles, while in N. quercina conidiomata are glabrous with a single ostiole ( Sydow and Sydow 1915; Aveskamp et al. 2010). Furthermore, conidia in N. quercina are larger and have less guttules (5.5-9 × 2.5-5 μm, 0-2(-3) guttules) ( Sydow and Sydow 1915; Aveskamp et al. 2010). On the other hand, N. pruni is characterised by hyaline conidia ( Chethana et al. 2019), while N. brennandiae produces conidia that turn brown with age.

Figures

Figure 1. Phylogenetic tree generated from the maximum-likelihood analysis based on the combined ITS, LSU, tub 2 and rpb 2 sequence alignment of Didymellaceae members. The RAxML bootstrap support values (BS), Bayesian posterior probabilities (PP), and parsimony bootstrap support values (PBS) are given at the nodes (BS / PP / PBS). BS and PBS values represent parsimony bootstrap support values> 50 %. Full supported branches are indicated in bold. The scale bar represents the expected number of changes per site. Ex-type strains are represented in bold. Strains obtained in the current study are printed in green; among them, whilst strains that represent new taxa are printed in red. Some of the basal branches were shortened to facilitate layout (the fraction in round parentheses refers to the presented length compared to the actual length of the branch). The tree was rooted to Coniothyrium palmarum CBS 400.71 and Leptosphaeria doliolum CBS 505.75.

Figure 6. Nothophoma brennandiae (CBS 145912). A, B Colony on OA (front and reverse) C, D colony on MEA (front and reverse) E, F colony on PDA (front and reverse) G pycnidia forming on OA. H, I pycnidia J section of pycnidial wall K-M conidiogenous cells N conidia. Scale bars: 50 μm (H, I); 10 μm (J); 5 μm (K-N).