Chaetophoma
Chaetophoma Cooke, Grevillea 7(no. 41): 25 (1878)
Dothideomycetes, Pleosporomycetidae, Pleosporales, genera incertae sedis
Saprobic on the host plant in terrestrial habitat. Sexual morph: undetermined. Asexual morph: Conidiomata dark brown, pycnidial, scattered to gregarious, superficial, globose, unilocular, glabrous. Ostiole absent. Conidiomatal wall composed of thick-walled, brown to hyaline cells of textura angularis. Conidiophores reduced to conidiogenous cells. Conidiogenous cells hyaline, enteroblastic, phialidic, ampulliform to doliiform, determinate, smooth-walled, with a minute apical channel and collarette. Conidia hyaline, cylindrical, unicelullar, smooth-walled (Sutton 1980).
Type species: Chaetophoma quercifolia Cooke, Grevillea 7(41): 25 (1878)
Notes: Chaetophoma has similar morphology of conidiomata and conidia with Aposphaeria and Asteromella. The conidiophores of Chaetophoma are lacking, while they are present in Aposphaeria and Asteromella (Sutton 1980). Gruyter et al. (2009) showed that Chaetophoma might be related to Pleosporales based on LSU and SSU sequence data. Similarly, Zhang et al. (2012) reported that Byssothecium (Massarinaceae, Pleosporales) has a chaetophoma-like asexual morph. The sequence of the type species of C. quercifolia is not available. Therefore Chaetophoma could not be placed in a certain family in Pleosporales. More than 70 taxa have been listed in Chaetophoma (Index Fungorum 2019), but many of them need to be re-studied with fresh collections.
Distribution: Brazil, USA (Sutton 1980, Gruyter et al. 2009).
Chaetophoma quercifolia (redrawn from Sutton 1980) a Conidia. b Conidiogenous cells and developing conidia. c Surface view of conidiomata.
References:
Li WJ, McKenZie EHC, Liu JK, Bhat DJ, Dai DQ, Caporesi E, Tian Q, Maharachcikumbura SSN, Luo ZL, Shang QJ, Zhang JF, Tangthirasunun N, Karunarathna SC, Xu JC, Hyde KD (2020) Taxonomy and phylogeny of hyaline-spored coelomycetes. Fungal Diversity 100: pages279–801.
Recent News
coelomycetes.org - notes 2coelomycetes.org - notes 1
Recent Genus
ZunuraZelosatchmopsis
Zelandiocoela
Recent Species
Zelosatchmopsis sacciformisZelandiocoela ambigua
Yoshinagaia quercus