Transfer of Asterosporium orientale to the genus Prosthemium (Pleosporales, Ascomycota): a common coelomycetous fungus with stellate conidia occurring on twigs of Betula spp

Recommended names for pleomorphic genera in Dothideomycetes

“…The connection was initially based on morphology (Sivanesan 1984, Hantula et al 1998) and later confirmed using molecular data (Tanaka et al 2010). Although more names have been placed in Pleomassaria , a number of these have now been removed to other genera, and recent studies have used Prosthemium (Kamiyama et al 2009). Based on its priority and recent use in the literature, the use of Prosthemium is recommended.…”

Fungal communities of symptomless bark of tropical trees

“…Termed phellophytes by Kowalski & Kehr (1992), these fungi are associated with the healthy outer bark of trees (Cotter & Blanchard 1982) and in some instances, increase the fitness of their tree hosts by protecting them against diseases (Webber 1981). Phellophytes of some temperate trees including Acer saccharum f. schneckii (Kliejunas & Kuntz 1974) and Fagus grandifolia (Cotter & Blanchard 1982), Alnus species (Fisher & Petrini 1990), Fagus sylvatica (Danti et al 2002) and a few tropical angiosperms (Suryanarayanan & Rajagopal 2000, Kamiyama et al 2009 2009b) have been studied. To our knowledge, there is no report on the diversity and distribution of phellophytes in tropical forests.…”

Molecular phylogeny of two coelomycetous fungal genera with stellate conidia,ProsthemiumandAsterosporium, on Fagales trees

“…During our recent studies of coelomycetous fungi in Japan and Russia (Endo et al 2008;Hatakeyama et al 2008;Sato et al 2008;Shabunin et al 2008;Yonezawa and Tanaka 2008;Kamiyama et al 2009), a number of anamorphic species with star-shaped conidia were encountered on twigs of Fagales trees such as Alnus, Betula, and Fagus. Morphological studies of these fungi suggested that they are members of either Prosthemium or Asterosporium.…”

“…These discrepancies in morphological circumscription were probably sources of taxonomic confusion. In fact, one species of Asterosporium, Asterosporium orientale, originally described from twigs of Betula ermanii in Russia (Mel'nik 1988), has been recently transferred to Prosthemium on the basis of its similarities to the type species of Prosthemium (Prosthemium betulinum) rather than the type of Asterosporium, Asterosporium asterospermum (Kamiyama et al 2009).…”

“…Although seven taxa have been previously recognized in the genus (Saccardo 1884(Saccardo , 1895(Saccardo , 1899(Saccardo , 1906Kowalski and Holdenrieder 1996;Tanaka et al 2005;Kamiyama et al 2009), the boundaries between these species are not necessarily clearly defined. For example, Prosthemium stellare has conidia with 10-14 radiating arms equally developed (Sivanesan 1984), but Prosthemium orientale, characterized typically by 4-armed conidia, also rarely produces up to 10-armed conidia (Kamiyama et al 2009). Prosthemium canba was introduced as a distinct species primarily based on its largest conidial arm (Tanaka et al 2005), but later some reduced conidia resembling those of P. betulinum were observed in culture (K. Tanaka, personal observation).…”