Fungalpedia – Note 2178, Leptosphaerulina

 

Leptosphaerulina. McAlpine.

Citation when using this data: Hongsanan S et al. 2020 – Fungalpedia, Ascomycota.

Index Fungorum, Facesoffungi, MycoBank, GenBank

Classification: Didymellaceae, Pleosporales, Pleosporomycetidae, Dothideomycetes, Pezizomycotina, Ascomycota, Fungi

 

Notes – Leptosphaerulina was introduced to accommodate the type species L. australis (McAlpine 1902). It was first accommodated in Pleosporaceae (Inderbitzin et al. 2000, Kodsueb et al. 2006) but Kodsueb et al. (2006) assigned this genus under Didymellaceae. Only the sexual morph has been observed. Leptosphaerulina is distinct from Macroventuria and Didymella even though they have hyaline ascospores. Leptosphaerulina produces large, longitudinally and transversally septate ascospores (Aveskamp et al. 2010). There are ten species assigned to this genus (Tennakoon et al. 2019) while there are 62 associated records in Index Fungorum (2020) and 69 records in MycoBank (2020).

 

Type species: Leptosphaerulina australis McAlpine, Fungus Diseases of stone-fruit trees in Australia: 103. 1902.

Other accepted species: Species Fungorum – search Leptosphaerulina.

 

References

Aveskamp MM, de Gruyter J, Woudenberg JHC, Verkley GJM, Crous PW. 2010 – Highlights of the Didymellaceae: a polyphasic approach to characterise Phoma and related pleosporalean genera. Studies in Mycology 65, 1–60.

Inderbitzin P, Jones EBG, Vrijmoed LLP. 2000 – A new species of Leptosphaerulina from decaying mangrove wood from Hong Kong. Mycoscience 41, 233–237.

Kodsueb R, Dhanasekaran V, Aptroot A, Lumyong S et al. 2006 – The family Pleosporaceae: intergeneric relationships and phylogenetic perspectives based on sequence analyses of partial 28SrDNA. Mycologia 98, 571–583.

McAlpine D. 1902 – Fungus diseases of stone-fruit trees in Australia, and their treatment. Agriculture Department of Victoria, Australia, Melbourne.

Tennakoon DS, Thambugala KM, De Silva NI, Kuo CH, Hyde KD. 2019 – Leaf litter saprobic Didymellaceae (Dothideomycetes): Leptosphaerulina longiflori sp., nov. and Didymella sinensis, a new record from Roystonea regia Asian Journal of Mycology 2, 87–100.

 

Entry by

Sinang Hongsanan, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Plant Epigenetics, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Microbial Genetic Engineering, College of Life Science and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, People’s Republic of China, Center of Excellence in Fungal Research, Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai 57100, Thailand, Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Faculty of Agriculture, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50002, Thailand

 

Published online 8 April 2026

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