Diatrypasimilis J.J.Zhou & Kohlm

Mycologia 102 (2): 432 (2010).

NOTES

Diatrypasimilis was proposed by Chalkley et al. (2010) to accommodate a marine xylarialean fungus, Diatrypasimilis australiensis isolated from roots of Rhizophora sp. (mangrove) in Australia. This genus has morphological features similar to both Diatrypaceae and Xylariaceae, such as relatively thick stroma on wood surface, erumpent, subglobose, ostiolate and carbonaceous, black ascomata with a conical neck, hamathecium consisting of paraphyses, 8-spored, cylindrical, unitunicate asci, with an apical apparatus and uniseriate, ellipsoidal, 1-celled, dark brown ascospores with a germ slit (Chalkley et al. 2010; Abdel-Wahab et al. 2014). Molecular phylogenetic analyses of the combined nuclear ribosomal RNA genes and their internal transcribed spacers placed the genus in a basal position in the Diatrypaceae clade of the order Xylariales (Chalkley et al. 2010; Abdel-Wahab et al. 2014). The asexual morph produces synnemata-like structures from yellow-orange to dark brown and distributed irregularly on mycelia developing on an aged culture. It produces hyaline, unicellular, cylindrical, or clavate conidia, which are holoblastic, produced singly on conidiogenous cells (Abdel-Wahab et al. 2014). However, none of the diatrypaceous taxa was sufficiently close to Diatrypasimilis australiensis to allow a clear placement within Diatrypaceae (Abdel-Wahab et al. 2014) . Only LSU, SSU and ITS sequence data are available for this species. Therefore, it is necessary to obtain Btub sequence data to confirm whether Diatrypasimilis australiensis is a representative of a new family in the Xylariales or a member of Diatrypaceae .