Fungalpedia – Note 2692, Skyttea
Skyttea Sherwood, D. Hawksw. & Coppins.
Citation when using this data: Meng QF et al. – Fungalpedia.
Index Fungorum, Faceoffungi, MycoBank, GenBank, Fig 1.
Classification: Cordieritidaceae, Helotiales, Leotiomycetes, Pezizomycotina, Ascomycota, Fungi
Skyttea was introduced by Sherwood et al. (1980) to accommodate lichenicolous fungus S. nitschkei, originally described as Nesolechia nitschkei Körb., which grows on Thelotrema lepadinum. The genus is characterized by lichenicolous ascocarps that are initially immersed in the host and later erupt through it, starting as closed structures and eventually opening with a broad pore. The ascocarps are deeply urn-shaped, featuring an olive or brown pseudoparenchymatous excipulum, often adorned with smooth hairs at the apex. The filiform paraphyses are simple or occasionally branched and septate. The asci are thick-walled, eight-spored, with an apically thickened wall, while the ascospores are hyaline, oval to narrowly ellipsoidal, and 0–1-septate (Sherwood et al. 1980).
Skyttea tephromelarum Kalb & Hafellner has been synonymized with S. elachistophora (Nyl.) Sherwood & D. Hawksw. Similarly, S. heterochroae was designated as a replacement name for Lecidea pertusariicola Jatta by Navarro-Rosinés et al. (2009c), since S. pertusariicola had already been introduced by Diederich et al. (2004) for a different species. The genus includes 31 recognized species, all of which are lichenicolous, with sequence data for nine species available in GenBank.
A phylogenetic analysis by Suija et al. (2015b) placed Skyttea within Helotiales. Further analysis using five gene loci by Pärtel et al. (2017) assigned Skyttea to Cordieritidaceae (Helotiales, Leotiomycetes), a classification later endorsed by Hyde et al. (2024).
Type species: Skyttea nitschkei (Körb.) Sherwood, D. Hawksw. & Coppins.
= Nesolechia nitschkei Körb.
Other accepted species: Species Fungorum – search Skyttea.
Figure 1 – Skyttea nitschkei redrawn from Sherwood et al. (1980). a Ascomata. b Vertical section of ascomata. c Marginal hairs. d Paraphyses. e Asci. f Ascospores. Scale bars: a = 500 μm, b = 50 μm, c–e = 10 μm, f = 5 μm.
References
Diederich P 2004a – Abrothallus. in Nash III, TH, Ryan, BD, Diederich, P, Gries, C et al.,Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region. 2, 626–630.
Hyde KD, Noorabadi M, Thiyagaraja V, He M et al. 2024 – The 2024 Outline of Fungi and fungus-like taxa. mycosphere 15, 5146–6239.
Navarro-Rosinés P, Pérez DM. 2009c – Skyttea heterochroae comb. et nom. nov.(Helotiales) un hongo liquenícola propio de Pertusaria heterochroa, presente en Catalunya, Islas Baleares y Maltra. Revista Catalana de Micologia 31, 77–85.
Pärtel K, Baral H-O, Tamm H, Põldmaa K. 2017 – Evidence for the polyphyly of Encoelia and Encoelioideae with reconsideration of respective families in Leotiomycetes. Fungal Diversity 82, 183–219.
Sherwood M, Hawksworth D, Coppins BJ. 1980 – Skyttea, a new genus of odontotremoid lichenicolous fungi. Transactions of the British Mycological Society 75 (3), 479–490.
Suija A, Ertz D, Lawrey JD, Diederich P. 2015b – Multiple origin of the lichenicolous life habit in Helotiales, based on nuclear ribosomal sequences. Fungal Diversity 70 (1), 55–72.
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 16 July 2026