Daldinia eschscholzii (Ehrenb.: Fr.) Rehm

TELEOMORPH | CULTURES AND ANAMORPH | SPECIMENS EXAMINED | NOTES

NOTES

This fungus was originally reported from the Philippines. It has long been questioned as to whether or not D. eschscholzii and D. concentrica are separable. Fries (1823) reduced it to a variety of the latter as Sphaeria concentrica Bolton: Fr. var. eschscholzii (Ehrenb.: Fr.) Fr. Dennis (1963) reviewed the history of this fungus and, following Sprengel, Starbäck, and Rehm, accepted it as a variety of D. concentrica. Dennis (1963, 1974) also remarked that this fungus is a tropical analogue of D. concentrica. This was also followed by Thind and Dargan (1978). On the other hand, most mycologists, e.g., Miller (1930, 1942), Child (1932), Martin (1969b), Petrini and Müller (1986), Rogers et al. (1987), San Martín (1992), Van der Gucht (1993, 1994), considered D. eschscholzii as a species. Daldinia eschscholzii tends to have a more flattened stromatal top and smaller ascospores than D. concentrica. Van der Gucht (1993) reported that by SEM the ascospore perispore of D. eschscholzii is ornamented with coil-like ornamentation, but that of D. concentrica is almost smooth. In culture, Daldinia eschscholzii produces smaller conidia, 4.5-6.5 x 2.5-3 mm vs. (5.5-)6.5-8(-9) x 3.5-4.5 mm, and less robust conidiophores than D. concentrica. Moreover, the sporulating regions of D. eschscholzii are gray, but those of D. concentrica are ochraceous. Van der Gucht (1994) compared cultures of these two fungi on malt extract agar. In general, her data on microscopic features of these two fungi agree with ours.

In addition to having persistent, pithy to woody tissue in the lighter concentric zones, younger stromata of D. eschscholzii also contain gelatinous tissue which, when dry, has a very hard consistency. This gelatinous tissue disappears with age and sometimes leaves locules in the persistent tissue. This phenomenon also occurs in D. grandis and is believed to occur in D. loculata whose mature and overmature stromata frequently have locules in the lighter concentric zones. Further collections may show that other species have this phenomenon as well.

No type material of D. luzonensis was located at the Rehm herbarium of S. The BPI element is therefore selected as the lectotype.