Bisifusarium sp. 2

Bisifusarium sp. 2 . Fig. 14.

Sporodochia orange, formed abundantly on carnation leaves, giving rise to a creamy conidial mass. Sporodochial conidiophores verticillately branched and densely packed; sporodochial phialides subulate to subcylindrical, 10–20 × 3–4 µm, smooth- and thin-walled. Sporodochial macroconidia slender, falcate, slightly curved with almost parallel sides tapering slightly towards both ends, with a papillate to hooked, curved apical cell and a blunt to rarely foot-like basal cell, aseptate, rarely 1-septate, hyaline, smooth- and thin-walled, (16.8–)18.0–21.0(–23.1) × (2.4–)2.6–3.0(–3.3) µm. Chlamydospores and microconidia not observed.

Culture characteristics: Colonies in the dark for 7 d at 25 °C: on OA reaching 6–6.5 cm diam., raised, aerial mycelium dense, colony margin entire, surface and reverse brownish orange. Colonies on PDA reaching 7.5–8 cm diam., raised, aerial mycelium dense, colony margin erose, surface and reverse white, pale brown in centre. Colonies on SNA reaching 6.5–7 cm diam., flat, aerial mycelium scant, colony margin erose, snowflake-like, surface and reverse white; odour absent.

Material examined: India, Gijarat , Ahmedabad , from human cornea, collection date and collector unknown, culture CBS 135686 .

Notes: Bisifusarium sp. 2 is phylogenetically closely related to but different from B. dimerum by 51 bp in the combined alignment (ITS 9, and rpb2 42 bp, while tef1 and tub2 sequences are not available for the novel lineage). Morphologically, Bisifusarium sp. 2 is characterized by its wider macroconidia (width up to 3.3 µm in Bisifusarium sp. 2 in comparison to less than 3 µm wide in B. dimerum ). Furthermore, conidia of Bisifusarium sp. 2 are mostly aseptate, while those of B. dimerum are 1-septate, and Bisifusarium sp. 2 lacks chlamydospores and microconidia in culture (Schoers et al. 2009).