Chlorocillium sinense W. H. Chen, Y. F. Han & J. D. Liang sp. nov.

Fig. 4

Etymology.

Referring to the country where the fungus was first discovered.

Type.

China • Guizhou Province, Guiyang, Kaiyang County, Monkey-Ear Tiankeng (27 ° 5 ' 12.138 " N, 107 ° 0 ' 48.42 " E), on a dead spider ( Araneae), 19 July 2023, Wanhao Chen, GZAC KY 0718 (holotype), ex-type, KY 07181 .

Description.

Colonies on PDA reaching 15–17 mm in diameter in 14 days at 25 ° C, green to yellowish green in center with white margin, reverse yellowish to light brown. Hyphae septate, hyaline, smooth-walled, 1.3–2.1 μm wide. Conidiophores hyaline, smooth-walled, emerging from aerial hyphae or chondroid mycelium, with single phialide or whorls of 2–4 phialides or verticillium-like from hyphae directly. Phialides cylindrical, somewhat inflated base, 11.7–20.1 × 1.1–1.3 μm, tapering to a thin neck. Conidia hyaline, smooth-walled, fusiform to ellipsoidal, 1.9–2.9 × 0.8–1.2 μm, forming divergent and basipetal chains. Octahedral crystals and chlamydospores absent.

Host.

Spider ( Araneae).

Additional strain examined.

China • Guizhou Province, Guiyang, Kaiyang County, Monkey-Ear Tiankeng (27 ° 5 ' 12.138 " N, 107 ° 0 ' 48.42 " E). On a dead spider ( Araneae), 19 July 2023, Wanhao Chen, KY 07182 (living culture) .

Remarks.

Chlorocillium sinense was easily identified as Chlorocillium, based on the BLASTn result in NCBI. The phylogenetic analysis of the combined dataset of ITS, LSU, RPB 2 and tef - 1 α sequence data showed that the new collections clustered as an independent clade with close relationship to C. araneogenum, C. griseum and C. lepidopterorum (Fig. 2). Table 2 provides the different morphological characteristics that can be used to differentiate Chlorocillium sinense from other phylogenetically close species.