Phyllostictaceae
Phyllostictaceae Fr. (as ‘‘Phyllostictei’’), Summa vegetabilium Scandinaviae 2: 420 (1849)
Index Fungorum number: IF 81162; Facesoffungi numbers: FoF 02296, >2000 species.
Foliicolous, pathogenic, endophytic or saprobic on plants. Sexual morph: Ascostromata pseudothecial, uniloculate, separate to gregarious, globose, brown to black, with a central ostiole. Asci 8-spored, bitunicate, fissitunicate, clavate to subcylindrical, fasciculate, pedicellate, with an ocular chamber. Pseudoparaphyses mostly absent at maturity, when present broad-cylindric, septate. Ascospores 2–3-seriate, ellipsoid-fusoid to limoniform, hyaline, aseptate, smooth-walled, usually with mucilaginous caps, or surrounded by a mucilaginous sheath. Asexual morph: Coelomycetous. Conidiomata pycnidial globose, dark brown, separate to aggregated, with a central ostiole; wall of 3–6 layers of brown cells of textura angularis. Conidiogenous cells lining the inner wall, hyaline, smooth, subcylindrical to ampulliform or doliiform, proliferating percurrently near apex, frequently covered in mucilaginous sheath. Conidia ellipsoid-fusoid to obovoid or ovoid, hyaline, aseptate, smooth-walled, guttulate or granular, frequently surrounded by a mucilaginous sheath, often bearing a single mucilaginous apical appendage.
Type: Phyllosticta Pers.
Notes: Phyllostictaceae (as Phyllostictei) was proposed by Fries (1849). Seaver (1922) used Phyllostictales and Phyllostictaceae for Phyllosticta. Phyllostictaceae was accepted by Hawksworth and David (1989). Schoch et al. (2006) suggested that Phyllosticta belongs to Botryosphaeriaceae and this was accepted by Crous et al. (2006a) and Liu et al. (2012) who noted that Phyllosticta is distinct from other genera in Botryosphaeriaceae. Wikee et al. (2013b) suggested Phyllostictaceae as a distinct family in Botryosphaeriales and Slippers et al. (2013) formally re-instated the family.
Ascospores in Melanopsaceae and Phyllostictaceae have a mucilage sheath. Phyllostictaceae differs from Melanopsaceae by uniloculate ascostromata. Though mucoid apical appendages on the conidia have been regarded as characteristic of Phyllosticta, this feature is not necessarily a characteristic of the family since they are absent in some species such as P. leucothoicola or P. neopyrolae (Wikee et al. 2013b).