Fungalpedia – Note 3321, Tritirachiomycetes

 

Tritirachiomycetes Aime & Schell, in Schell, Lee & Aime, Mycologia 103(6): 1339 (2011).

Citation when using this data: Wijayawardene NN et al. 2024 – Fungalpedia.

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

Classification: Pucciniomycotina, Basidiomycota, Dikarya, Fungi.

Asexual morph: Multinucleate hyphae, simple pore septa, conidiophores that are subhyaline to dematiaceous and subhyaline to dematiaceous sympodial conidiogenous cells that occur in whorls and bear conidia on an elongated rachis. Sexual morph: Unknown (Schell et al. 2011).

Life modes and distribution: The members of Tritirachiomycetes are worldwide in distribution and reported as saprophytes (Moraes et al. 2010; Schell et al. 2011; Naseri et al. 2013), biotrophic mycosymbionts (Beguin 2010), endophytes (Vieira et al. 2011; Bezerra et al. 2013; Qadri et al. 2014), and as human opportunistic pathogens (Martínez-Herrera et al. 2015; Vanam et al. 2018; Bezerra et al. 2020); (e.g. Tritirachium oryzae is important species that causes human infections (Martínez-Herrera et al. 2015; Vanam et al. 2018).

Notes: The class Tritirachiomycetes was introduced by Schell et al. (2011). Multi-gene phylogenetic analyses (LSU, SSU, ITS, and tef-1α) and septal pore ultrastructure confirmed its placement in Pucciniomycotina (Schell et al. 2011). He et al. (2019) provided the divergence time estimates for Tritirachiomycetes. Wijayawardene et al. (2022a) and He et al. (2024) accepted the class Tritirachiomycetes comprises with one order (i.e. Tritirachiales), one family (Tritirachiaceae), two genera (Paratritirachium and Tritirachium), and six species. 

Type order: Tritirachiales Aime & Schell, in Schell, Lee & Aime, Mycologia 103(6): 1339 (2011).

Type family: Tritirachiaceae Aime & Schell, in Schell, Lee & Aime, Mycologia 103(6): 1339 (2011).

= Tritirachiaceae Locq., Mycol. gén. struct. (Paris): 208 (1984).

Type genus: Tritirachium Limber, Mycologia 32(1): 24 (1940).

Type species: Tritirachium dependens Limber, Mycologia 32: 26 (1940).

Other accepted species: Species Fungorum – search Tritirachiomycetes.

 

Figure 1 – Tritirachium sp. a-c T. dependens. d,e T. album. Scale bars: a-e =10μm (redrawn from Limber 1940). 

 

References

Beguin H. 2010 – Tritirachium egenum, a thiamine- and siderophore-auxotrophic fungal species isolated from a Penicillium rugulosum. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 74:165–1.

Bezerra JD, Santos MG, Barbosa RN, Svedese VM et al. 2013 – Fungal endophytes from cactus Cereus jamacaru in Brazilian tropical dry forest: a first study. Symbiosis 60:53–63.

Bezerra JDP, Felipe MTDC, Paiva LM, Magalhães OMC et al. 2020 – Phylogenetic placement of Tritirachium strains from the URM culture collection originally founded by Augusto Chaves Batista (1916–1967) in Brazil, and the description of T. batistae sp. nov. Acta Bot Bras 34:290–300.

He MQ, Cao B, Liu F, Boekhout T et al. 2024 – Phylogenomics, divergence times and notes of orders in Basidiomycota. Fungal Divers.

He MQ, Zhao RL, Kevin D. Hyde KD, Begerow D et al. 2019 – Notes, outline and divergence times of Basidiomycota. Fungal Divers 99:105–367.

Martínez-Herrera EO, Arroyo-Camarena S, Tejada-García DL, Porras-López CF et al. 2015 – Onychomycosis due to opportunistic molds. An Bras Dermatol 90:334–337.

Moraes RNR, Ribeiro MCT, Nogueira MCL, Soares MMCN et al. 2010 – First report of Tritirachium oryzae infection of human scalp. Mycopathologia 169:257–259.

Naseri A, Fata A, Najafzadeh MJ. 2013 – First case of Tritirachium oryzae as agent of onychomycosis and its susceptibility to antifungal drugs. Mycopathologia 176:119.

Qadri M, Rajput R, Abdin MZ, Vishwakarma RA et al. 2014 – Diversity, molecular phylogeny, and bioactive potential of fungal endophytes associated with the Himalayan blue pine (Pinus wallichiana). Microb Ecol 67:877–887.

Schell WA, Lee AG, Aime MC. 2011 – A new lineage in Pucciniomycotina: class Tritirachiomycetes, order Tritirachiales, family Tritirachiaceae. Mycologia 103:1331–1340.

Vanam HP, Rao PN, Mohanram K, Yegneswaran PP et al. 2018 – Distal lateral subungual onychomycosis owing to Tritirachium oryzae: a bystander or invader? Mycopathologia 183:459–463.

Vieira PDS, Souza Motta CM, Lima D, Torres JB et al. 2011 – Endophytic fungi associated with transgenic and non-transgenic cotton. Mycology 2:91–97.

Wijayawardene NN, Hyde KD, Dai DQ, Sánchez-García M et al. 2022a – Outline of Fungi and fungus-like taxa – 2021. Mycosphere 13:53–453.

 

Entry by

Nalin N. Wijayawardene, Center for Yunnan Plateau Biological Resources Protection and Utilization, College of Biological Resource and Food Engineering, Qujing Normal University, Qujing, Yunnan 655011, P.R. China, Tropical Microbiology Research Foundation, 96/N/10, Meemanagoda Road, 10230 Pannipitiya, Sri Lanka, Department of Bioprocess Technology, Faculty of Technology, Rajarata University, Sri Lanka

 

Published online 2 October 2026

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