Fungalpedia – Note 3013, Nagrajchalara
Nagrajchalara. W.P. Wu & Y.Z. Diao.
Citation when using this data: Wenping Wu & Yongzhao Diao. 2023– Fungalpedia.
Index Fungorum, Facesoffungi, MycoBank, GenBank, Fig 1
Classification: Pezizellaceae, Helotiales, Leotiomycetidae, Leotiomycetes, Pezizomycotina, Ascomycota, Fungi
Colonies effuse, brown to dark brown, hairy. Mycelium partly immersed and partly superficial, composed of pale brown to medium brown, smooth, septate and branched hyphae. Anamorph: Stroma absent or present; if present, consisted of brown and irregular cells. Setae absent or present; solitary or aggregated, often in clusters with conidiophores, erect, straight or flexuous, cylindrical, tapering towards the apex, brown to dark brown, aseptate or septate, thick- and smooth-walled. Conidiophores scattered or aggregated at the basal stroma, sometimes associated with setae at the base, erect, straight or flexuous, simple, obclavate, subcylindrical, pale brown to very dark brown, aseptate or septate, smooth or verruculose, with or without percurrent proliferations, terminating in a phialidic conidiogenous cell. Conidiogenous cells integrated or discrete, terminal or directly arising from cells of superficial hyphae, ampulliform, lageniform, obclavate, urceolate or subcylindrical, pale brown to dark brown, smooth or verruculose, composed of a venter and a collarette; transition from venter to collarette gradual, abrupt or barely perceptible. Conidia endogenous, extruded singly or in short or long chains, cylindrical, rarely obclavate or ellipsoid, straight, mostly hyaline, less frequently subhyaline or pale brown, septate, smooth or verruculose, with rounded or truncate ends, often provided with basal marginal frill or rarely fringes of wall material, slightly rounded at the apex. Teleomorph: Unknown.
Ecology/substrate/host: Saprobe on decaying leaves, branches, bark, fruit, and rotten wood.
Geographical distribution: Widely distributed (Hughes 1958; Nag Raj and Kendrick 1975).
Notes: The phylogenetic analyses with different datasets in this study clearly showed that the chalara-like fungi with aseptate and septate conidia were paraphyletic in Pezizellaceae. The species with septate conidia were further split into two distinct subclades, i.e., the Nagrajchalara agathidis clade and Cylindrocephalum aurea clade, both were with strong support in the phylogenetic analyses from different datasets. The Nagrajchalara agathidis clade included majority of the studied species with septate conidia, while the C. aurea clade was only with five species (three known as Chalara aurea, C. hughesii, C. kendrickii and two as new species). These two clades were distinct from Chalara s. str. and other chalara-like genera; thus, they need to be correctly assigned to other genera.
Based on a literature study and supported by the phylogenetic analyses, Cylindrocephalum is reinstated for the Cylindrocephalum aurea clade, and Nagrajchalara is established as a new genus for the N. agathidis clade. Seven existing generic names were considered as potential generic name for this clade, and they were two asexually typified genera, Cylindrocephalum (1851) and Excioconidium (1925), and four sexually typified genera, Calycellina, Phaeoscypha, Rodwayella and Tapesina. Under the asexually typified Chalara s. lat., six asexually typified generic synonyms were included, Cylindrocephalum, Thielaviopsis, Stilbochalara, Chalaropsis, Excioconidium and Hugehsiella (Nag Raj and Kendrick 1975). Among them, the type species of Chalaropsis, Hugehsiella, Stilbochalara and Thielaviopsis were congeneric and now reclassified as Thielaviopsis in Ceratocystidaceae (Microascales). This made Cylindrocephalum (1851) and Excioconidium (1925) as the only potential choices (Hughes 1958; Nag Raj and Kendrick 1975). Cylindrocephalum, typified by C. aureum, was naturally chosen as the generic name for the Chalara aurea clade. Excioconidium was only known with the type species E. cibotti, and no living strain or molecular sequence data was available, thus its phylogenetic relationship with other chalara-like fungi remains to be studied in future. Morphologically E. cibotti, possessing 7-septate, cuneiform or obovoid, and thick-walled conidia with a broad, rounded apex, and a narrow, truncate base, is not a typical member of the N. agathidis clade.
The four sexually typified genera Calycellina, Phaeoscypha, Rodwayella and Tapesina brought into ourconsideration for the N. agathidis clade due to the established anamorph-teleomorph connection and phylogenetic analyses, but again none of them could be chosen as a satisfactory generic name for this clade. Five species of Chaetochalara or Chalara with septate conidia were reported to be associated with the teleomorphs of Leotiomycetes: Chaetochalara aspera associated with Calycellina carolinensis, Chaetochalara cladii associated with Phaeoscypha cladii, Chalara aotearoae associated with Rodwayella sessilis, and Chalara rubi associated with Tapesina griseovitellina (Nag Raj and Kendrick 1975; Lowen and Dumont 1984; Zhuang and Hyde 2001; Baral 2002). The connection between Chalara rubi and Tapesina griseovitellina was confirmed by pure culture study, however, Tapesina was easily excluded from the candidate name due to its remarkable difference of the teleomorph and anamorph (aseptate conidia with frills at both ends) (Baral 2002). Calycellina was excluded from the choice since it is phylogenetically distinct from the Nagrajchalara agathidis clade (Han et al. 2014; Ekanayaka 2019; Johnston et al. 2019). The genus Calycellina with 65 legitimate names (MycoBank, accessed on July 13th, 2022) was polyphyletic, indicated by the three analyzed species C. leucella, C. populina and C. punctata scattered in different clades of Pezizellaceae, i.e., C. populina and C. punctata (the type species) in the Calycina/Chalara s. str. clade, and Calycellina leucella in the N. agathidis clade.
Phaeoscypha and Rodwayella were also excluded from the choice due to lacking solid evidence of the anamorph-teleomorph connection and clarity of the phylogenetic relationship with the type species (Han et al. 2014; Ekanayaka 2019; Johnston et al. 2019). Similar to Calycellina, the phylogenetic relationship of Phaeoscypha cladii in Leotiomycetes is yet to be determined. Rodwayella was brought into consideration due to one strain (voucher H.B. 9913, from European, not the type specimen) identified to be the type species R. sessilis of the genus clustered together with N. agathidis clade was, but was also rejected due to lacking living strain and DNA sequence from the type material. Rodwayella sessilis was originally discovered with only teleomorph from Australia. Baral (2002), on the basis of European specimen, briefly mentioned the connection of Chalara aff. aotearoae with Rodwayella, but no description was provided, and the connection was not proven experimentally. The two existing species of the genus, R. citrinula and R. sessilis seemed to be not congeneric. Based on all these analyses, none of these generic names (Calycellina, Cylindrocephalum, Excioconidium, Phaeoscypha, Rodwayella and Tapesina) could be satisfactorily chosen as the generic name for the N. agathidis clade, and the new genus Nagrajchalara is created for them.
Based on morphological study and phylogenetic analyses in this study, a total of 43 species with available molecular sequences were accepted in this new genus. Morphologically they are very variable in setae, conidiophores, phialides and conidia. Only three species, N. aspera, N. jonesii, and N. septata, are with setae among the conidiophores. The conidiophores are well-developed with multiseptate basal stalk or reduced to 1–2 basal stalk cell with a terminal phialide. The conidia are always cylindrical or short-cylindrical, with obtuse apex and truncate or obtuse base. The basal frills of conidia are often seen as well (Nag Raj and Kendrick 1975).
Except for the species accepted in this study, many existing species with septate conidia might well belong to the genus and should be transferred to the new genus. These species include Chalara alabamensis, C. aotearoae, C. bicolor, C. cibotti, C. cladii, C. curvata, C. connari, C. dictyoseptata, C. distans, C. dracophylli, C. emodensis, C. germanica, C. ginkgonis, C. gracilis, C. grandispora, C. inaequalis, C. magnispora, C. nigricollis, C. paramontellica, C. prolifera, C. pteridina, C. rhynchophiala, C. rostrata, C. scabrida, C. spiralis, C. stipitata, C. transkelensis, C. tubifera, C. urecolata, Chaetochalara proteae, and Chaetochalara ramosa. However, no living strain or DNA sequence from these species is currently available for molecular phylogenetic analyses, and their phylogenetic relationship with other species of Nagrajchalara needs to be further studied in future.
Type species: Nagrajchalara yongnianii W.P. Wu & Y.Z. Diao, Fungal Diversity 119: 408 (2023)
Other accepted species: Species Fungorum – search Nagrajchalara.
Figure 1 – Nagrajchalara yongnianii (Wu16916, holotype). a Conidiophores and phialidic conidiogenous cell. b–i Conidia. Scale bar: 10 μm for a, 5 μm for b–i.
References
Entry by
Wenping Wu, R&D Center, Novozymes China, No. 14 Xin Xi Lu, Shangdi Zone, Haidian District, Beijing 100085, People’s Republic of China
Published online 1 September 2026