Periconiella liquidambaricola sp. nov. – a new Chinese hyphomycete

Abstract

The new species Periconiella liquidambaricola, collected on living leaves of Liquidambar formosana (Altingiaceae) in Jiangxi Province, China, is described, illustrated and compared with other species of the genus Periconiella. The new fungus is the first species described from a host belonging to the Altingiaceae. Periconiella liquidambaricola is well characterized by its very long conidiophores and smooth, pale scolecosporous conidia. It has similar conidia to Periconiella lygodii on fronds of Lygodium flexuosum in India, but differs in having conidia with attenuated to acute apexes and much longer conidiophores with uninflated bases.

More diverse tree communities promote foliar fungal pathogen diversity, but decrease infestation rates per tree species, in a subtropical biodiversity experiment

“…Importantly, many fungi have never been isolated and many remain unidentified for both techniques. Over the last 40 years, an average of 1300 new fungal species per year have been described (Hawksworth & Lücking, 2017) including Periconiella liquidambaricola and Pseudocercospora daphniphyllicola from the BEF-China platform (Braun, Bien, Honig, & Heuchert, 2015;Braun, Bien, Hantsch, & Heuchert, 2014). Experimental tests on the exact ecology of these newly-described, isolated foliar fungi under a range of biological and environmental circumstances were out of the scope of this study, but would surely be interesting and advancing the field.…”