Hypoxylon fuscopurpureum (Schwein.: Fr.) M. A. Curtis

TELEOMORPH | CULTURES AND ANAMORPH | SPECIMENS EXAMINED | NOTES

NOTES

The Schweinitz type of Sphaeria fuscopurpurea at PH is a mixture of two fungi. The piece of material glued on the paper card with blackened stromatal surface and unique pyriform blackish ascospores is here selected as the lectotype. The other fungus is H. fuscum. The type material at BPI is undoubtedly a duplicate of this lectotype material.

This fungus usually grows on decorticated wood and is mainly distributed in temperate eastern North America. The name H. fuscopurpureum has been applied to specimens assignable to H. anthochroum, H. fuscum, and some other taxa with a purplish stromatal surface. Miller (1961) considered H. fuscopurpureum to be a synonym of H. rubiginosum on one hand, but erected a new variety of H. vogesiacum on the other hand. Hypoxylon fuscopurpureum and H. vogesiacum var. microspora are considered to be synonyms herein. We consider H. fuscopurpureum to be a species, rather than a variety of H. vogesiacum because it has smaller, blackish, pyriform ascospores, has constantly greenish to olivaceous KOH-extractable pigments, and lacks a dotted band along the germ slit.