CULTURE AND ANAMORPHS

A distinct advance in the study of Nemania was the discovery by Kenerley that an isolate forming the teleomorph in culture would do so more abundantly if peptone was deleted from the medium (Kenerley & Rogers 1976). Moreover, decreasing or eliminating peptone from the medium stimulated the fungus to forcibly eject ascospores (Kenerley & Rogers 1976). Finally, Kenerley showed by painstaking cinematic photomicrography that perithecia that are releasing ascospores actively via ascus explosion also release ascospores passively via ascus dissolution (Kenerley & Rogers 1976). It was hypothesized that these two kinds of ascospore release are widely operative among pyrenomycetes.

A basic discovery relating to Nemania was that the anamorph has a geniculate conidiogenous region, thus separating it from Nodulisporium Preuss and its teleomorphs; the discoverers named this type of anamorph Geniculosporium (Chesters & Greenhalgh 1964). Following the development of SME fruiting medium by Kenerley (Kenerley & Rogers 1976) it was discovered that all species of Nemania grow rapidly on it, usually producing abundant Geniculosporium. Moreover, three isolates with teleomorphs unknown under natural conditions produce perithecial stromata on it (Petrini & Rogers 1986). Interestingly, only three Nemania species that fruit on natural substrates under natural conditions have been induced to produce the teleomorph in agar culture: N. gwyneddii (Whalley, R. L. Edwards & S. Francis) Pouzar, N. minutula (Penz. & Sacc.) Y.-M. Ju & J. D. Rogers, and N. maritima Y.-M. Ju & J. D. Rogers.