Fungalpedia – Note 3130, Cirrenalia

 

Cirrenalia Meyers & R.T. Moore, Amer. J. Bot. 47 (5): 346 (1960).

Citation when using this data: Jian Ma et al. 2024 – Fungalpedia.

Index Fungorum, Faceoffungi, MycoBank, GenBank.

Classification: Halosphaeriaceae, Microascales, Hypocreomycetidae, Sordariomycetes, Pezizomycotina, Ascomycota, Fungi.

Notes: Cirrenalia was established by Meyers and Moore (1960), with C. macrocephala (formerly as Helicoma macrocephala) as the type species. Index Fungorum (2024) records 23 species of Cirrenalia and out of these C. adarca, C. iberica, C. japonica, C. nigrospora, C. pygmea and C. tropicalis are currently known as Juncigena adarca, Cucurbitinus ibericus, Hiogispora japonica, Neocirrenalia nigrospora, Hydea pygmea and Matsusporium tropicale, respectively (Kohlmeyer et al. 1997; Abdel-Wahab et al. 2010; Liu et al. 2020; Index Fungorum 2024). Cirrenalia fusca are synonyms of Halazoon fuscus (Schmidt 1969, 1985). In addition, based on the description and photographs of Cirrenalia caffra and C. lignicola, we excluded C. lignicola from Cirrenalia, and transferred it to Sclerococcum (Kirk 1981). Currently, Cirrenalia comprises fourteen species, namely C. acericola, C. basiminuta, C. caffra, C. donnae, C. hunanensis, C. indica, C. lichenicola, C. longipes, C. macrocephala, C. pallescens, C. palmicola, C. pseudomacrocephala, C. qinghaiensis and C. rhodospora (Meyers and Moore 1960; Kohlmeyer 1968; Sutton 1973; Rao and Reddy 1978; Matsushima 1980; Goos 1985b; Mel’nik 1988; Raghu-Kumar et al. 1988; Matsushima and Matsushima 1996; Zhao and Liu 2005; Jiang and Zhang 2007; Zhang et al. 2014; Pan et al. 2018; Spribille et al. 2020). Most Cirrenalia species were found from terrestrial habitats, with only three species (C. basiminuta, C. macrocephala and C. pseudomacrocephala) distributed in marine environments (Zhao et al. 2007; Zhang et al. 2014; Pan et al. 2018; Spribille et al. 2020). The asexual morph of Cirrenalia is characterized by micronematous or semi-macronematous conidiophores that ocassionally consist of inflated cells, monoblastic, and terminal conidiogenous cells that frequently display inflated cells, and helicoid or irregularly coiled, acrogenous, solitary, septate conidia (Meyers and Moore 1960). It should be noted that only Cirrenalia donnae, C. lichenicola and C. longipes possess sporodochia conidia on the substratum.

Type species: Cirrenalia macrocephala (Kohlm.) Meyers & R.T. Moore, American Journal of Botany 47 (5): 347 (1960).

Other accepted species: Species Fungorum – search Cirrenalia.

Figure 1 – (a) Cirrenalia macrocephala (redrawn from Seifert et al. (2011)); (b) Helicoascotaiwania farinosa (redrawn from Dayarathne et al. (2019)), a, b Helicoid conidia. Scale bars: a, b = 20 µm; (c) Torpedospora mangrovei (redrawn from Abdel-Wahab et al. (2010)). a–e conidia from culture, f conidia from natural wood. Scale bars: a–f = 5 µm; (d) Brachyhelicoon xylogenum (redrawn from Arnaud (1952)).

 

References

Abdel-Wahab MA, Pang KL, Nagahama T, Abdel-Aziz FA et al. 2010 – Phylogenetic evaluation of anamorphic species of Cirrenalia and Cumulospora with the description of eight new genera and four new species. Mycological Progress 9:537–558.

Goos RD. 1985b – On the anamorph genus Cirrenalia. Proceedings: Plant Sciences 94:245–252.

Jiang YL, Zhang TY. 2007 – Two new species of Cirrenalia from soil. Mycotaxon 101:65–68.

Kirk P. 1981 – New or interesting microfungi II. Dematiaceous hyphomycetes from Esher Common, Surrey. Transactions of the British Mycological Society 77(2):279–297.

Kohlmeyer J, Volkmann-Kohlmeyer B, Eriksson O. 1997 – Fungi on Juncus roemerianus. 9. New obligate and facultative marine ascomycotina. Botanica Marina 40:291–300.

Kohlmeyer J. 1968 – Marine fungi from the tropics. Mycologia 60(2):252–270.

Liu LL, Liu NG, Yang J, Chen YY et al. 2020 – Cucurbitinus gen. nov. (Halosphaeriaceae, Microascales), a new genus to accommodate Cucurbitinus constrictus comb. nov. and Cucurbitinus ibericus comb. nov. Phytotaxa 455(2):119–136.

Matsushima K, Matsushima T. 1996 – Matsushima Mycological Memoirs 9. Takashi Matsushima, Kobe.

Matsushima T. 1980 – Saprophytic microfungi from Taiwan: Part 1. Hphomycetes. Matsushima Mycological Memoirs n. 1. Matsushima Fungal Collection, Kobe.

Mel’nik V. 1988 – New species of hyphomycetes and coelomycetes from collections in the Altai Mountains and Soviet Far East. Mikol Fitopatol 22(6):492–500.

Meyers SP, Moore RT. 1960 – Thalassiomycetes II. new genera and species of Deuteromycetes. American Journal of Botany 47(5):345–349.

Pan HQ, Xia HB, Zhang TY. 2018 – Three new species in hyphomycetes genera of Cirrenalia, Trichocladium and Oidiodendron from Qinghai Province. Journal of Fungal Research 16(2):87–91.

Raghu-Kumar S, Zainal A, Gareth Jones E. 1988 – Cirrenalia basiminuta: a new lignicolous marine deuteromycete from the tropics. Mycotaxon 31(1):163–170.

Rao V, Reddy K. 1978 – Some new microfungi from India. Indian Journal Mycological Research 16:301–309.

Schmidt I. 1969 – Carbosphaerella pleosporoides gen. nov. et spec. nov. und Cirrenalia fusca spec. nov., zwei neue marine Pilzarten von der Ostseeküste. Feddes Repertorium 80(2‐3):107–112.

Schmidt I. 1985 – Types and type collections of new higher marine and fresh-water fungi from the Baltic coast. Mycotaxon 24:419–421.

Spribille T, Fryday AM, Pérez-Ortega S, Svensson M et al. 2020 – Lichens and associated fungi from Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska. The Lichenologist 52(2):61–181. 

Subramanian CV. 1956 – Hyphomycetes-I. Journal of the Indian Botanical Society 35(1):53–91.

Sutton B. 1973 – Hyphomycetes from Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada. Mycological Papers 132:1–143.

Zhang Y, Wu Y, Zhang T. 2014 – Notes on soil dematiaceous hyphomycetes from Hunan province, China I. Mycosystem 33(3):560–566.

Zhao G, Liu X. 2005 – A review of Cirrenalia (hyphomycetes) and a new species. Fungal Diversity 18:201–209.

 

Entry by

Jian Ma, School of Food and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Guizhou Institute of Technology, Guiyang 550003, P.R. China, Center of Excellence in Fungal Research, Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai 57100, Thailand, School of Science, Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai, 57100, Thailand.

 

Published online 10 September 2026

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