The Plant Family Asteraceae Is a Cache for Novel Fungal Diversity: Novel Species and Genera With Remarkable Ascospores in Leptosphaeriaceae

Abstract

In a cursory survey of fungi on Asteraceae in Yunnan Province, China, we report fungal species belonging to the family Leptosphaeriaceae (Pleosporales, Dothideomycetes). Two novel species have remarkable ascospores that are unusual for sexual ascomycetes. Multilocus phylogeny of large subunit, small subunit, and internal transcribed spacer sequence data showed one to be a novel genus, while the other is a new species. <i>Praeclarispora artemisiae</i> gen. et sp. nov. is introduced and is typical of Leptosphaeriaceae, but has unusual fusiform, versicolor ascospores with a brown median cell. <i>Sphaerellopsis artemisiae</i> sp. nov. has scolecosporous ascospores with deeply constricted septa that split into two parts, which resembles <i>S. isthmospora</i> but differs by ascospore dimension and molecular data. In addition, <i>Plenodomus artemisiae</i> is reported as a new collection from dead stems of <i>Artemisia argyi</i> in Qujing City. <i>Plenodomus sinensis</i> is reported as a new host record from <i>Ageratina adenophora</i>. All taxa are illustrated and described based on evidence of taxonomy and phylogeny.