Creosphaeria sassafras
Creosphaeria sassafras (Schwein.) Y.M. Ju, F. San Martín & J.D. Rogers, Mycotaxon 47: 223 (1993)
Index Fungorum number: IF360144; Facesofungi number: FoF03011
Saprobic on dead woody twigs of Myrsine seguinii. Sexual morph: Ascomata 750–900 μm high × 570–730 μm diam., (x̅ = 840 × 670 μm, n = 5), erumpent to superficial, cover the wood surface, solitary or scattered, globose to subglobose, dull black, roughened, carbonaceous, brittle, with an ostiolar canal. Ostioles 160–170 × 136–150 μm (x̅ = 170 × 144 μm, n = 5), at the centre. Peridium 32–50 μm wide, composed of several layers of dark brown cells of textura intricata. Paraphyses 2–4.5 μm (x̅ = 3 μm, n = 20), abundant, filamentous, cylindrical, septate, unbranched. Asci 156–195 × 5.4–8.2 μm (x̅ = 169 × 6.5 μm, n = 20), 8 spored, unitunicate, cylindrical, straight or curved, long pedicellate, apically rounded, with a J+, apical ring. Ascospores 8.5–10.5 × 3.4–4.3 μm (x̅ = 9.4 × 3.9 μm, n = 30), uniseriate, unicellular, ellipsoidal to oblong or cylindrical, straight, initially hyaline, becoming light brown to brown at maturity, small guttules, smooth-walled, without a gelatinous sheath. Asexual morph: Conidiophores dichotomously branched, with pale brown to brown stipes that become paler upwards, smooth, loosely arranged when arising from aerial hyphae. Conidiogenous cells 12–32 × 1.2–2.4 μm, terminal, cylindrical, smooth, often bearing denticulate conidial secession scars, infrequently with several annellations. Conidia 23–34 × 1.4–2 μm, hyaline, smooth, strongly curved with flattened bases (Daranagama et al. 2018).
Culture characteristics: Ascospores germinating on PDA within 24 h at room temperature (25 °C). Germ tubes produced from the apical cell of an ascospore. Colonies on PDA, reaching 20 mm diameter after two weeks at 20–25 ℃, mycelia superficial, flat, medium dense, slightly raised, surface smooth, white, reverse white.
Material examined: China, Lancang, Lahu Autonomous Prefecture, Hani, on dead woody twigs of Myrsine seguinii (Myrsinaceae), 19 July 2020, G.C. Ren, LGY06 (HKAS 122724), living culture KUMCC 21 0546; ibid., LGY39 (HKAS 122725), living culture KUMCC 21 0567.
Known distribution: Corticated wood in Brazil, Chile, Italy, Switzerland, and Taiwan Province, China (Miller 1961, Petrini & Müller 1986, Ju et al. 1993), Fargesia denudate, Lindera glauca, Yushania dafengdingensis, Yushania, Mabianensis in China (Helander et al. 2013), Lauraceae sp. in Spain (U’Ren et al. 2016), Juniperus rigida in Korea (Eo et al. 2018), Fraxinus ornus in Italy (Schlegel et al. 2018), Panicum virgatum in USA (Whitaker et al. 2018), Laurus nobilis (Lauraceae) in Spain Crous et al. (2019), Myrsine seguinii (Myrsinaceae) in China (This study).
GenBank numbers: KUMCC 21 0546: SSU: OQ168236, LSU: OQ170886, ITS: OQ158964, rpb2: OR578564; KUMCC 21 0567: SSU: OQ168237, LSU: OQ170887, ITS: OQ158965.
Notes: Our two new collections clustered with Creosphaeria sassafras with 100% ML bootstrap support and 1.0 BYPP value in the multi-gene phylogeny. Our new collections share similar morphological characters with C. sassafras, such as erumpent, small stromata with orange granules, stromata arranged in linear rows with a flattened apex, a greyish ostiole and frequently oblong ascospores (Miller 1961, Petrini & Müller 1986). A comparison of nucleotide between our two new strains and Creosphaeria sassafras strains (CM AT 018, CBS 119001, CBS 127876 and STMA 14087) identified base pair differences of less than 1.5% for LSU, ITS and rpb2 genes 0.36%, 0.62% and 0.5% respectively. Therefore, our new collections are identified as new host records of C. sassafras. Creosphaeria sassafras is widespread and reported as a saprobe and an endophyte (Miller 1961, Ju et al. 1993, Bills & Peláez 1996, Wendt et al. 2018, Crous et al. 2019).
Figure 1. Phylogram generated from ML analysis based on LSU, ITS and rpb2 sequence data, representing Creosphaeria (Lopadostomataceae). Related sequences are obtained following Jaklitsch et al. (2014). Fifty one strains are included in the combined analyses, which comprise 2734 characters for LSU, ITS and rpb2 alignment. Sordaria macrospora (Buck s.n.) and S. fimicola (CBS 723.96) were used as the outgroup taxa. The best-scoring RAxML tree with a final likelihood value of -19422.149203 is presented. The matrix had 1308 distinct alignment patterns, with 25.06% of undetermined characters or gaps. Estimated base frequencies were as follows; A = 0.257735, C = 0.240155, G = 0.266558, T = 0.235552; substitution rates AC = 1.278993, AG = 2.823294, AT = 1.374073, CG = 0.941424, CT = 5.402412, GT = 1.0000. The tree topology of the ML analysis is similar to the Bayesian analysis. Bootstrap values for ML equal to or greater than 70% and BYPP values greater than 0.95 (the rounding of values to 2 decimal proportions) are labelled on the nodes. Strains of the newly described species are in blue, while type strains are in bold.
Figure 2. Creosphaeria sassafras (HKAS 122724). a Material examined. b Appearance of ascostromata on the host substrate. c Transverse section of an ascostroma. d, e Vertical section of an ascostroma. f Ostiole. g Peridium. h Paraphyses. i–l Asci. m–q Ascospores. r Germinated ascospore. s, t Culture characters on PDA (s = from above, t = from below). Scale bars: e = 300 μm, f = 100 μm, g, h = 30 μm, i–l = 50 μm, m–q = 5 μm, r = 20 mm, s, t = 20 mm.
References
- Ren GC, Jayasiri SC, Tibpromma S, De Farias ARG, et al. (2024) Saprobic ascomycetes associated with woody litter from the Greater Mekong Subregion (Southwestern China and Northern Thailand). Mycosphere 15(1), 954–1082, Doi 10.5943/mycosphere/15/1/8
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