Helicosporium Nees

Helicosporium Nees, Syst. Pilze (Würzburg): 68 (1816) [1816–17] Notes. Helicosporium, one of the three earliest described helicosporous genera (Helicoma, Helicomyces and Helicosporium) (Link 1809; Nees 1817; Corda 1837), was established by Nees (1817) with H. vegetum as the type species. To date, 118 species are recorded in the Index Fungorum (2025). However, based on combined morphological and molecular evidence, only about 32 species are currently accepted in this genus (Lu et al. 2018 b; Xiao et al. 2023; Ma et al. 2024 b; Bai et al. 2025; Peng et al. 2025; Sun et al. 2025). Amongst these, sexual morphs have been confirmed for only five species: H. flavum, H. sexuale, H. vegetum, H. rubrum and H. multiseptatum (Boonmee et al. 2014, 2021; Brahmanage et al. 2017; Peng et al. 2025; Sun et al. 2025). Most species of Helicosporium are saprobes inhabiting freshwater and terrestrial environments, with a broad geographical distribution (Morgan-Jones and Goos 1992; Zhao et al. 2007; Lu et al. 2017 a, 2018 b, 2022; Dong et al. 2020; Boonmee et al. 2021; Hsieh et al. 2021; Xiao et al. 2023; Ma et al. 2024 b). The majority of Helicosporium species have been isolated from decaying wood of unidentified plant hosts, while H. multiseptatum as the saprobe and H. thailandicum as the pathogen obtained from Poaceae sp. and Elaeis sp. (Arecaceae), respectively (Sun et al. 2025). In this study, we introduce a new Helicosporium species which was isolated from medicinal plants.