The GenusOphionectria(Euascomycetes, Hypocreales)

Abstract

SUMMARY The genus Ophionectria has been included in both the Euascomycetes and Loculoascomycetes. Critical study of the type species, Ophionectria trichospora, reveals it to have unitunicate asci, a hypocreaceous centrum and bright-colored perithecia. The genus, therefore, belongs in the euascomycete order Hypocreales. All available type specimens of species which have been placed in Ophionectria were examined. Only the type species remains in the genus. All others are excluded. In this paper the monotypic genus Ophionectria is described and figured; excluded species are discussed briefly. One new species is described: Barya byssicola. Two new names are proposed: Calonectria bryophila and Lasiosphaeria glabra. Seven new combinations are proposed: Calonectria hendrickxii, C. vernoniae, Torrubiella lloydii, Lasiosphaeria rufula, Podonectria coccorum, P. larvaespora and Tubeufia paludosa. The genus Ophionectria was described by Saccardo (1878) to accommodate Nectria species with very long spores. His description is brief: Perithecia Nectriae-Asci octospori. Sporidia filiformia multiseptata v. multiguttulata. Thus, he differentiated Ophionectria from Nectria solely on the basis of its long, multiseptate spores. To Saccardo and his contemporaries perithecia meant bright-colored perithecia with soft, fleshy walls. In the modern taxonomic sense Nectria-like includes additional characters, especially those of the centrum. Saccardo originally included three species in Ophionectria, all transferred from the genus Nectria: 0. trichospora, 0. mellina and 0. palitdosa. Twenty-three more Ophionectria species were described by several authors, before Seaver (1909) designated 0. trichospora as the type species. Of the other species transferred to Ophionectria by Saccardo, 0. mellina was later transferred by H6hnel (1912) to Calonectria, where it belongs. The type specimen of 0. paludosa does not have a nectrioid perithecium and belongs in the loculoascomycete genus Tubeufia.