Kirschsteiniothelia agumbensis O.P. Sruthi & Rajeshk.

Sruthi, Onden P., Rajeshkumar, Kunhiraman C., Gowrav, Shivapura M., Ansil, Parayelil A. & Ashtamoorthy, Sreejith K., 2024, Morphological and phylogenetic evidence for recognition of a new species of Kirschsteiniothelia, K. agumbensis and validation of five new combinations in Kirschsteiniotheliaceae, Phytotaxa 649 (2), pp. 159-181 : 165-167

Kirschsteiniothelia agumbensis O.P. Sruthi & Rajeshk. , sp. nov. (Figures 2,3,4)

Index Fungorum number: IF 901544

Etymology:— Epithet agumbensis refers to the place Agumbe where the fungus was collected.

Holotype:— INDIA. Karnataka, Agumbe, 13.493181°N, 75.089218°E, on decaying wood of Garcinia sp. , 15 September 2022, OP Sruthi and KC Rajeshkumar , holotype — AMH 10646 , ex-type culture NFCCI 5714 .

Saprobic on decaying wood of Garcinia sp. Sexual morph: Unknown. Asexual morph: Colonies effuse on natural substrate, scattered, hairy, black. Mycelium immersed, partly superficial in the substrate, composed of pale brown, branched hyphae. Conidiophores reduced to conidiogenous cells, holoblastic, monoblastic, integrated, terminal, determinate, cylindrical, smooth, dark brown, unbranched, septate or non-septate, 9.0–14.95 μm long, 7.25–8.5 µm wide. Conidia acrogenous, solitary, dry, dark brown to brown, pale brown at apex, cylindrical, rounded and narrower towards the apex, wider and truncate at base, rostrate, straight to flexuous, coarsely verrucose to granulate to punctate, 18–41 euseptate, 228–450.5 × 15–23.5 µm (x̄ = 337 × 19.8 µm, n = 20).

Culture characteristics: —Colonies on MEA at 25 ± 2 ºC after 10 d slow growing, 28–30 mm diam., initially light grey (1D1), when mature colonies are greyish brown (5E3) reverse dark greyish brown (5F3). Margin regular, brownish grey to grey (6D2 to 6E1), umbonate at center, greyish brown (5F3).

Notes: Phylogenetic analyses delineated K. spatiosa , K. tectonae and K. guangdongensis as a sister clade to the new species with a statistical support of ML-BS= 83% and PP = 0.99, respectively. K. agumbensis (NFCCI 5714) is also allied to K. rostrata with a high statistical support of ML-BS= 98% and PP = 0.99. In addition, PHI of 0.97, indicates no significant genetic recombination between K. agumbensis and its allied taxa.

Kirschsteiniothelia agumbensis (NFCCI 5714) morphologically resembles to K. rostrata and K. spatiosa in having an integrated, monoblastic conidiogenous cells and rostrate, straight to curved eusepate conidia with truncate base. However, K. agumbensis differ from K. spatiosa (90–139 × 9.5–16.5 µm (8–23 septa)) and K. rostrata (80–150 × 10– 20 μm (8–13 septa)) in having large conidia, more septation and differing conidial ornamentations. Kirschsteiniothelia agumbensis has long, coarsely verrucose to granulate to punctate conidia (228–450.5 × 15–23.5 µm) with 18–41 septation. Additionally, K. agumbensis has a reduced conidiophore confined to conidiogenous cells. Whereas conidiophores of K. spatiosa and K. rostrata were elongated and multi-septate (70–128 × 7.5–12.5 μm (6–12 septa) and 190–450 × 9–15 μm (7–24 septa) respectively).

Sun et al. (2021) included five hitherto Dendryphiopsis species (asexual morphs), D. arbuscula , D. binsarensis , D. biseptata , D. fascicularis and D. goaensis in Kirschsteiniothelia following the latest treatment of Dendryphiopsis by Wijayawardene et al. (2014a). However, these five species were invalidly introduced in Kirschsteiniothelia without following the nomenclatural code such as Art. F.5.1 (no identifier number cited) and Art. 41.1 (lacking a full and direct basionym reference) of the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi, and Plants ( Turland et al. 2018). As a consequence of this, we have legitimately placed these five species under the genus Kirschsteiniothelia .