Fungalpedia – Note 3124, Spirosphaera

 

Spirosphaera Beverw., Trans. Brit. Mycol. Soc. 36 (2): 120 (1953).

Citation when using this data: Jian Ma et al. 2024 – Fungalpedia.

Index Fungorum, Faceoffungi, MycoBank, GenBank, Fig 1.

Classification: Tricladiaceae, Helotiales, Leotiomycetidae, Leotiomycetes, Pezizomycotina, Ascomycota, Fungi.

Notes: Spirosphaera was initially described by Beverwijk (1953), with S. floriformis as the type species based on both morphology and molecular data (Voglmayr 2011; Vu et al. 2019). Spirosphaera is characterized by loosely interwoven, branched, septate, spherical to subspherical, coiled, and hyaline to light fuscous conidia (Beverwijk 1953). Index Fungorum (2024) lists nine species of Spirosphaera; out of these S. cupreorufescens and S. lignicola are currently reclassified as Fouskomenomyces cupreorufescens and Dendroclathra lignicola, respectively. Spirosphaera shares similarities with Fouskomenomyces and Spiroplana in producing septate and coiled conidia. The conidia of Fouskomenomyces differ from those of Spirosphaera in producing irregularly and loosely coiled, and copper-brown conidia (Voglmayr 2004), whereas Spiroplana produces white conidial masses, and the conidia are irregularly subglobose, and tightly spirally interwoven (Voglmayr et al. 2011). Currently, five species, namely Spirosphaera beverwijkiana, S. carici-graminis, S. floriformis, S. minuta, and S. verruculosa, were found in aero-aquatic habitats (Beverwijk 1953; Hennebert 1968; Abdullah et al. 1986; Voglmayr 1997a). However, S. dimorpha has been reported from a freshwater habitat (Marvanova and Barlocher 1998). Additionally, S. keratinophila was isolated from fallen crow feathers in a terrestrial habitat (Udagawa and Uchiyama 1998).

Type species: Spirosphaera floriformis Beverw., Trans. Brit. Mycol. Soc. 36 (2): 121 (1953).

Other accepted species: Species Fungorum – search Spirosphaera.

 

Figure 1 – (a) Lambertella tubulosa (redrawn from Abdullah and Webster (1981)), a phialides. b, c Conidia. Scale bars: b = 40 µm, a, c = 20 µm; (b) Helicodendron fuscum (redrawn from Voglmayr and Fisher (1997)), a Conidiophore with attached conidia. b Conidia. Scale bars: a, b = 50 µm; (c) Mollisia gigantea (redrawn from Glen-Bott (1951)). Scale bars: 50 µm; (d) Spirosphaera floriformis (redrawn from Seifert et al. (2011)).

 

References

Abdullah S, Horie Y, Udagawa SI. 1986 – New or interesting aero-aquatic conidial fungi from Japan. Nova Hedwigia 43(3-4):507–513.

Beverwijk ALV. 1953 – Helicosporous hyphomycetes. I. Transactions of the British Mycological Society 36(2):111–126.

Hennebert G. 1968 – New species of Spirosphaera. Transactions of the British Mycological Society 51(1):13–24.

Marvanova L, Barlocher F. 1998 – Hyphomycetes from Canadian streams. IV. Spirosphaera dimorpha sp. nov. Mycotaxon 18:33–40.

Udagawa Si, Uchiyama S. 1998 – Three new hyphomycetes isolated from soil and feather debris. Canadian journal of botany 76(9):1637–1646.

Voglmayr H. 1997a – Helicodendron praetermissum sp. nov. and Spirosphaera carici-graminis sp. nov., aero-aquatic fungi on monocotyledonous debris. Canadian Journal of Botany 75(10):1772–1777.

Voglmayr H. 2004 – Spirosphaera cupreorufescens sp. nov., a rare aeroaquatic fungus. Studies in Mycology 50(1):221–228.

Voglmayr H. 2011 – Phylogenetic relationships and reclassification of Spirosphaera lignicola, an enigmatic aeroaquatic fungus. Mycotaxon 116(1):191–202.

Vu D, Groenewald M, De Vries M, Gehrmann T et al. 2019 – Large-scale generation and analysis of filamentous fungal DNA barcodes boosts coverage for kingdom fungi and reveals thresholds for fungal species and higher taxon delimitation. Studies in Mycology 92(1):135–154.

 

Entry by

Jian Ma, School of Food and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Guizhou Institute of Technology, Guiyang 550003, P.R. China, Center of Excellence in Fungal Research, Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai 57100, Thailand, School of Science, Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai, 57100, Thailand.

 

Published online 10 September 2026

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