Daldinia singularis Y.-M. Ju, Vasilyeva, & J. D. Rogers

TELEOMORPH | CULTURES AND ANAMORPH | SPECIMENS EXAMINED | NOTES

NOTES

This fungus is characterized by ascal apical rings that are highly reduced or lacking, ascospores with broadly rounded ends, ascospore germ slits that are much less than spore-length, and coil-like twists in the conidiophores. The stromata produced in culture matured in 3-4 wk after their initiation, forming 8-15 concentric rings inside. The ring formation in D. singularis, like that in D. caldariorum Henn. (Ju et al., 1997), did not involve abortive perithecia. Bayliss-Elliott (1920) believed that rings in Daldinia were the result of abortive perithecia, but our data on stromata that develop in culture indicate that this phenomenon is not universal and, indeed, may not occur at all.

The conidiophores of D. singularis have intercalary coil-like twists. This has not been found in other taxa of Daldinia with known anamorphs. The conidia are produced from percurrently proliferating conidiogenous cells. Daldinia petriniae Y.-M. Ju, J. D. Rogers, & San Martín is also known to produce conidia in a similar fashion but has a very different teleomorphic morphology (Ju et al., 1997). This fungus is found occasionally on Carpinus and it is suspected to be host-specific.