Pestalotia Distincta Refound in Japan

Abstract

During a survey of the leaf litter fungi of Japanese evergreen oak forests, several collections of a coelomycete on the leaves of Castanopsis cuspidata Schottky caught my attention. Apparently, the is identical to Pestalotia Guba (Guba, 1961). This species was originally collected by Asano in 1922 in Fukuoka, Japan, on the leaves of C. cuspidata. A portion of the specimen was sent to Guba and was treated as a new species of Pestalotia in his monograph (Guba, 1961). The holotype specimen has been preserved in the Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden and labelled Emil F. Guba, University of Massachusetts, Herbarium Monochaetiarum et Pestalotiarum, Pestalotia Guba, Type specimen, Coll. Asano, etc. The specific epithet distincta might have been given because of its inconspicuous apical cells and the rosettelike arrangement of short setulae near the apex of the conidia. Guba (1961) has mentioned in his book (p. 107) that the fungus is unusual in the absence of conspicuous hyaline apical However, the Latin diagnosis given by him and the original line drawing provided by him which accompanied the type specimen clearly indicate the presence of himispherical, hyaline, apical cells. This discrepancy could have resulted from the examination of the old, dry herbarium material kept for nearly half a century. This might have misled him to conclude that conspicuous apical cells were absent in this species. Fresh collections of P. on the leaves of C. cuspidata were made at Esuzaki, Wakayama, on 18 April, 1969, and later at Miyanoura, Yaku Is., Kagoshima, on 1 June, 1970. Conspicuous, conical, hyaline, apical cells are constantly on the conidia of the collections on C. cuspidata and on the conidia in the cultures made from the recent collections. Setulae, mostly five in number, are short and adorn the basal periphery of the apical cells and very rarely also are on the distal end of the apical cells. They are straight or less curved than those illustrated by Guba. The length of 5-celled conidia of the new collections is somewhat greater than that given by Guba, being 19-28 ,um, and that of the 3-intermediate cells is 15-19 Mm. A full description of P. refound in Japan is given as follows: