Fungalpedia – Note 1596, Neozythia
Neozythia Petr.
Index Fungorum, Facesoffungi, MycoBank, GenBank, Fig 1
Classification: Incertae sedis, Helotiales, Leotiomycetidae, Leotiomycetes, Pezizomycotina, Ascomycota, Fungi
Saprobic on dead stems of Astragalus sp. (Fabaceae). Sexual morph: undetermined. Asexual morph: Conidiomata very pale brown, pycnidial, solitary to gregarious, subepidermal, immersed, globose to subglobose, unilocular, glabrous. Ostiole absent, dehiscence by break down of the apical wall. Conidiomatal wall composed of thin-walled, hyaline cells of textura angularis. Conidiophores arising from the inner wall layer of conidiomata, hyaline, irregular, branched, septate, smooth-walled. Conidiogenous cells hyaline, meristematic, thallic, integrated, fragmenting, determinate, smooth-walled. Conidia hyaline, cylindrical, ellipsoid or irregular in shape, 0–1-septae, continuous or constricted at the septa, smooth-walled, eguttulate (adapted from Sutton 1980).
Notes: Sutton (1980) re-described Neozythia and accepted one species, N. handelii (Bubák) Petr. (1959). He reduced N. nectrioidea to a synonym of N. handelii. Wijayawardene et al. (2017b) selected the earlier name N. nectrioidea (Petrak 1957) as the generic type. Neozythia is similar to the asexual morph of Pycnopeziza (= Acarosporium Bubák & Vleugel ex Bubák), Barnettella D. Rao & P.Rag. Rao, Phacidiella P. Karst., Phragmotrichum Kunze, Sirozythiella Höhn., Staninwardia B. Sutton and Trullula Ces. in having thallic conidiogenous cells (Sutton 1980, Nag Raj 1993, Wijayawardene et al. 2016). However, these genera are separated by conidia morphology. Neozythia has hyaline, cylindrical, ellipsoid or irregular in shape, 0–1-septae conidia. The asexual morph of Pycnopeziza has hyaline, cylindrical or allantoid, 1–3-septate conidia bearing filiform, flexuous appendages. Barnettella has dark brown, muriform conidia connected by several disjunctor cells. Phacidiella has hyaline, long doliiform or cylindrical, straight, unicellular conidia. Phragmotrichum has brown, concolourous or versicolourous, cymbiform, fusiform or ellipsoidal or muriform conidia. Sirozythiella has hyaline, long doliiform, straight or slightly curved, 0-2-euseptate conidia. Staninwardia has pale brown, doliiform to clavate, 1-septate, verruculose conidia with a mucilaginous sheath. Trullula has pale brown, regularly oblong, aseptate, smooth-walled conidia (Sutton 1980). No molecular data is available for Neozythia. Fresh collections are needed to place it in a natural group.
Type species: Neozythia nectrioidea (Petr.) Petr., Sydowia 11(1-6): 351 (1958) [1957].
Other accepted species: Species Fungorum – search Neozythia.
Figure 1 – Neozythia nectrioidea (redrawn from Sutton 1980) a Conidia. b Vertical section of conidioma. c Conidiophores and developing conidia.
References
Li WJ, McKenZie EHC, Liu JK, Bhat DJ, Dai DQ, Caporesi E, Tian Q, Maharachcikumbura SSN, Luo ZL, Shang QJ, Zhang JF, Tangthirasunun N, Karunarathna SC, Xu JC, Hyde KD 2020 – Taxonomy and phylogeny of hyaline-spored coelomycetes. Fungal Diversity 100: pages279–801.