Fungalpedia – Note 2721, Neoechinodiscus
Neoechinodiscus Molinari & R. Sierra.
Citation when using this data: Meng QF et al. – Fungalpedia.
Index Fungorum, faceoffungi, MycoBank, GenBank, Fig 1.
Classification: Pezizomycotina genera incertae sedis, Ascomycota, Fungi.
= Echinodiscus Etayo & Diederich.
Neoechinodiscus was provided by Sierra et al. (2020) as a replacement for Echinodiscus Etayo & Diederich which introduced by Etayo et al. (2000) to accommodate the lichenicolous species E. lesdainii, found on the thallus of Lobaria peltigera. Although Echinodiscus was validly published, Diederich et al. (2018a) later recognized it as illegitimate due to nomenclatural conflicts. The name Echinodiscus was a later homonym of the diatom genus Echinodiscus A. Mann and the legume Echinodiscus Bentham. Additionally, the name had been used earlier by Leske (1778) for a genus of sand dollars in the family Astriclypeidae (Sierra et al. 2020).
Neoechinodiscus lesdainii was designated as the type species, characterized by its apothecioid ascomata. The discs are plane to convex, blackish, and slightly furfuraceous. The exciple is reduced, with a textura prismatica structure and lateral violet pigment reacting K+ bluish gray and N+ reddish orange. It features large, hyaline, simple hairs. The paraphyses are simple, septate, apically untapered, and intermixed with hairs similar to those arising from the exciple. The asci are clavate with a prominent stalk, uniformly thin-walled, not apically thickened, and the ascospores are hyaline, simple, and ellipsoid (Etayo et al. 2000).
Since the description of the first species, Zhurbenko (2009d) introduced a second species, E. kozhevnikovii, which grows on Cetraria islandica. Both species were transferred to Neoechinodiscus, and the genus currently comprises these two recognized species. However, no sequence data are available in GenBank. Hyde et al. (2024) suggested that the highly simplified morphology of the apothecia and the asci with undifferentiated apical walls provide limited evidence for classifying these fungi within Leotiomycetes, and proposed that they might be more appropriately treated as Pezizomycotina genus incertae sedis.
Type species: Neoechinodiscus lesdainii (Vouaux) R. Sierra & Molinari (Sierra et al. 2020).
= Echinodiscus lesdainii (Vouaux) Etayo & Diederich (Etayo et al. 2000).
= Phacopsis lesdainii Vouaux (Vouaux 1914b).
Other accepted species: Species Fungorum – search Neoechinodiscus.
Figure 1 – Neoechinodiscus lesdainii redrawn from Etayo et al. (2000). a Section through apothecium. b Asci, paraphyses, hymenial and excipular hairs. c Ascospores. Scale bars: a, b = 10 μm, c = 5 μm.
References
Entry by
Meng QF, Center of Excellence in Fungal Research, Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai, 57100, Thailand and School of Public Health, Zunyi Medical University, Guizhou 563000, China.
Published online 22 July 2026