Massarina pandanicola Tibpromma & K.D. Hyde

Tibpromma, Saowaluck, Hyde, Kevin D., Bhat, Jayarama D., Mortimer, Peter E., Xu, Jianchu, Promputtha, Itthayakorn, Doilom, Mingkwan, Yang, Jun-Bo, Tang, Alvin M. C. & Karunarathna, Samantha C., 2018, Identification of endophytic fungi from leaves of Pandanaceae based on their morphotypes and DNA sequence data from southern Thailand, MycoKeys 33, pp. 25-67 : 36-39

Massarina pandanicola Tibpromma & K.D. Hyde sp. nov. Figure 10

Etymology.

name referring to the host genus of the plant on which the fungus was first discovered ( Pandanus ).

Holotype.

MFLU 18-0004

Description.

Colonies on PDA attaining 9 cm diam. in 4 weeks at room temperature, slow growing, white to yellow-white. Mycelium superficial and immersed composed of septate, branched, 2.5-7 µm wide, sub-hyaline, with smooth and thick-walled hyphae. Sexual morph Undetermined. Asexual morph Conidiophores 12-25 µm high, 8-14 µm diam. (x̄ = 15.12 × 10.45 µm, n = 10), enteroblastic, phialidic, cylindrical or sub-cylindrical, sub-hyaline. Conidia 3-5 × 1-3 µm (x̄ = 4.34 × 1.75 µm, n = 30), cylindrical, hyaline, smooth and thin-walled, aseptate, rounded ends, guttulate, without sheet or appendages.

Culture characteristics.

Colonies on PDA (Figure 2, PE52), superficial, white to yellow-white, irregular, undulate with smooth and raised on surface media; reverse yellow-white. Generative hyphae simple-septate, branched, sub-hyaline, with guttulate cells, thin-walled. Sporulating in culture within 3 months (Figure 10).

Material examined.

THAILAND, Chumphon, Pathio District, on healthy leaves of Pandanus sp. ( Pandanaceae ), 1 December 2016, S. Tibpromma PE52 (MFLU 18-0004, holotype); HKAS100854, paratype, ex-type living cultures, MFLUCC 17-0596 = KUMCC 17-0293.

Genbank numbers.

ITS=MG646958, LSU=MG646947, SSU=MG646979, TEF1=MG646986.

Notes.

The genus Massarina has been known as a phylogenetically diverse group in the order Pleosporales based on molecular data ( Liew et al. 2002) and most members in Massarina except for the type species ( M. eburnea ) are morphologically variable. The taxon, Massarina pandanicola collected from Pandanus sp. in Thailand is introduced here as a new species with both morphology and phylogeny support. The morphology of the taxon showed similar conidia with Massarina eburnean ( Tanaka et al. 2015), but based on phylogenetic analysis of combined ITS, LSU, SSU and TEF1 gene sequence data, the new taxon M. pandanicola is well-separated from other species in Massarina (Figure 9) with high bootstrap support (79 % in ML). This is the first record of Massarina from Pandanus sp.