Dicephalospora tengyueica L. Luo & K. D. Hyde, 2025

Dicephalospora tengyueica L. Luo & K. D. Hyde sp. nov.

Fig. 2 View Figure 2

Etymology.

The epithet “ tengyueica ” refers to the collection site, Tengyue street, where the holotype specimen was collected.

Holotype.

HKAS 135691 View Materials .

Description.

Saprobic on dead twigs. Sexual morph: Apothecia 1.2–3.2 mm diam., when dry arising solitary or gregarious in a small group, scattered on wood, centrally stipitate, superficial, orange when fresh, become light brown when dry. Stipe 0.9–2.3 mm height at the base, yellow when fresh, and light yellow to white when dry. Receptacle orange and discoid. Margins slightly rough, orange to dark orange. Disc slightly convex and orange. Ectal excipulum 30–66 µm (x ̄ = 46 µm, n = 20), multi-layered, and thin-walled, with hyaline cells of textura globulosa. Medullary excipulum 21–48 µm (x ̄ = 33 µm, n = 30), composed of thin-walled, hyaline, gelatinized cells of textura globulosa to porrecta, small cells condensed. Hymenium 84–171 µm (x ̄ = 131 µm, n = 60), hyaline to yellowish, inner mixed with asci and paraphyses. Paraphyses 1.1–3.2 µm wide (x ̄ = 1.9 µm, n = 30), at the terminal cell, filiform, numerous, lengths exceeding the asci, unbranched, aseptate, apical cells swollen and globose, filled with oil droplets. Asci (85 –) 90–118 (– 125) × 5.9–12.5 µm (x ̄ = 102 × 9.5 µm, n = 50), eight-spored, unitunicate, cylindrical, and clavate, J- in Melzer’s reagent, tapered long stipitate base. Ascospores (17 –) 19–32 (– 35) × 2–3.5 µm (x ̄ = 27.4 × 2.9 µm, n = 60), uniseriate to biseriate, fusiform, aseptate, both ends are filled with oil droplets of different sizes, some narrowed ends capped with a small and gelatinous collar. Asexual morph: Not observed.

Material examined.

China • Yunnan Province, Tengchong City, Tengyue Street , altitude 1749 m, on the decayed unidentified twigs, 19 August 2022, Le Luo, ly 289 ( HKAS 135691 View Materials , holotype) ; • ibid., ly 290 ( HKAS 135694 View Materials , paratype) .

Notes.

Our specimens of D. tengyueica ( HKAS 135691 and HKAS 135694 ) formed a distinct clade (93 % MLBS and 0.99 BIPP), closely related to D. rufocornea , D. irregularis and D. sagerae (Fig. 1 View Figure 1 ). However, the new species exhibit distinct morphological features in having orange to light brown apothecia, light yellow stipe, tapered long stipitate base, aseptate ascospores, and aseptate paraphyses. Dicephalospora rufocornea has red or reddish-orange apothecia, red stipe, and sessile base with septate paraphyses ( Ekanayaka et al. 2019), whereas D. irregularis has sessile apothecia, asci arising from simple septa without basal protuberance, aseptate to septate ascospores that are wider than D. tengyueica (5.5–7.5 µm vs. 2–3.5 µm) ( Phutthacharoen et al. 2022). The detailed morphological description is not available for D. sagerae ( Tan & Shivas, 2022) but it differs from D. tengyueica in the ITS base pair comparison, which revealed 8.5 % differences. Therefore, D. tengyueica is introduced here as a new species.