Calycina

Fungalpedia – Note 3009, Calycina

Citation when using this data: Wenping Wu & Yongzhao D. 2023– Fungalpedia.

Index Fungorum, Facesoffungi, MycoBank, GenBank

Classification: Pezizellaceae, Helotiales, Leotiomycetidae, Leotiomycetes, Pezizomycotina, Ascomycota, Fungi

= Helotium subgen. Calycella Fr., Summa veg. Scand., Sectio Post. (Stockholm): 355, 1849.

= Calycella (Fr.) Boud., Bull. Sco. mycol. Fr. 1: 112, 1885.

= Cystopezizella Svrček, Ceská Mykol. 37: 67, 1983.

= Eubelonis Clem., Gen. fung. (Minneapolis): 87, 1909.

= Pezizella Fuckel, Jb. nassau. Ver. Naturk. 23-24: 299, 1870.

Colonies effuse, brown to dark brown, hairy. Mycelium partly immersed and partly superficial, composed of pale brown to brown, smooth, septate and branched hyphae. Anamorph: Stroma absent or present; if present, consisting of aggregated cells. Setae absent. Conidiophores macronematous, micronematous, scattered or aggregated from the basal stroma, erect, simple, or rarely branched, subcylindrical, pale brown, brown to very dark brown, smooth or verrucose, septate, consisting of a basal cell or septate stalk and a terminal phialide, with or without percurrent proliferations. Conidiogenous cells ampulliform, lageniform, obclavate, ellipsoidal, urceolate or subcylindrical, pale brown to dark brown, composed of a venter and a collarette, transition from venter to collarette gradual, abrupt or barely perceptible. Conidia holoblastic, cylindrical, straight, hyaline, aseptate, smooth, with rounded or truncate ends, often with basal marginal frill or rarely fringes of wall material slightly rounded at the apex, extruded in short chains. Teleomorph: Apothecia sessile or nearly so, smooth, tough, the outer tissue of the cup composed of rather thick-walled hyphae undulating and somewhat interwoven but in general lying more or less parallel at a high angel to the surface, whitish or yellow. Asci cylindric or clavate, usually 8-spore. Ascospore ellipsoid to fusoid, hyaline, for a long time simple later often becoming septate with one to several septa (For teleomorph, adapted from Seaver 1934; Dennis 1968).

Ecology/substrate/host: Saprobe on decaying plant material.

Geographical distribution: Widely distributed.

Description and illustration: Gray (1821); Seaver (1934); Dennis (1968).

Notes: Calycina, typified by C. herbarum, were reported with a total of 235 legitimate names are listed under the genus Calycina (MycoBank, accessed on July 7^th, 2022). The phylogenetic analyses clearly showed its affinity with Pezizellaceae (Han et al. 2014; Ekanayaka et al. 2019; Johnston et al. 2019). The phylogenetic analyses of this study showed that at least 13 chalara-like species, including 9 species known as Chalara s. lat., were congeneric with Calycina, since these chalara-like fungal species clustered together with the type species C. herbarum and 8 other species of Calycina as a strongly supported clade. Similar results

were reported by other researchers (Baral and Rämä 2015; Guatimosim et al. 2016; Friggens et al. 2017; Suija and Motiejūnaité 2017; Crous et al. 2019). Based on the literature study and phylogenetic analysis, Calycina was chosen as the generic name for these chalara-like fungi with three strong arguments. Firstly, in the phylogenetic tree, the type species C. herbarum clustered together with these chalara-like fungi; secondary Calycina Nees ex Gray (1811) is an earlier name than Chalara (Corda) Rabenh. (1844); and thirdly Calycina seemed to be more frequently used in the academic world, supported by the Google Scholar search with 13800 results for Calycina and 8200 results for Chalara (searched on 12 December 2022). Based on this result, all these 9 species known as Chalara s. lat. were reassigned to Calycina.

The phylogenetic analyses from different datasets of the integrated LSU/SSU and LSU/ITS sequences showed that the genus Calycina was polyphyletic, although all analyzed species clustered in the well supported Calycina/Chalara s. str. clade. For example, in the phylogenetic tree of Pezizellaceae, the 13 species of Calycina scattered in 3 subclades under Calycina/Chalara s. str. clade: the first one consisted of C. alstrupii, C. discreta, C. herbarum, C. languida, C. lactea, C. populina, C. vulgaris, and 6 chalara-like species, the second one consisted of C. cortegadensis, C. marina, C. claroflava, C. sulfurina and three Bloxamia species, and the last one consisted of C. citrina and C. shangrilana. This was also showed into other studies (Baral and Rämä 2015; Guatimosim et al. 2016; Friggens et al. 2017; Suija and Motiejūnaité 2017; Crous et al. 2019; Karunarathna et al. 2021; Mitchell et al. 2022). Future work is needed to clarify concept of the genus and also phylogenetic relationship of many existing species.

Although apparently less frequently reported, several Calycina species have been reported with similar asexual states as phialidic, dematiaceous hyphomycetes (Mitchell et al. 2022). Calycina herbarum, the type species, has been shown to be genetically similar or identical to a Phialophora-like asexual fungus isolated as a grass endophyte (Sánchez Márquez et al. 2007). “Bisporella” tetraspora, Calycina drosodes, C. lactea, C. parilis and Calycina vulgaris have been described as having or growing in close association with a Chalaralike asexual state (Morozova 2014; Bara and Rämä 2015; Friggens et al. 2017; Mitchell et al0 2022); “Bisporella” polygoni is also found with a species of Cystodendron (Carpenter 1981; Morozova 2014). “Bisporella” maireana has been described as bearing brown phialides on the ectal excipulum (Galán 1993). Mitchell et al. (2022) also observed a similar asexual state growing on the excipulum of a collection of a species of Calycina from Ecuador. Even though these fungi have been assigned to several different form genera, the descriptions of these phialidic, dematiaceous asexual states are similar. These results further supported the assignment of those chalara-like anamorphs into Calycina.