Metacapnodium juniperi Speg.

Metacapnodium juniperi (W. Phillips & Plowr.) Speg. Fig. 9 Specimen examined. Scotland • VC – 96 – East Inverness – shire, On Juniperus sp., 15 Feb. 2023, leg. Sophie Furze, E 01043363. GenBank accession number. ITS, OR 532938. Description. Subicula dark brown to black and spongy, 0.3 to 14 mm in diameter according to Hughes (1972). Mycelium of moniliform, brown to dark brown hyphae, hyphae mainly smooth throughout but verrucose at the distal parts, anastomosing, branched, straight or curved, tapering to their tips. Cells broader than long, to 27 µm wide, narrowing to 6 µm wide at hyphal tips. Sexual form. Ascomata are abundant, semi-immersed in the subiculum, ostiolate, dark brown to black, 120–210 × 90–130 µm. Asci bitunicate, ellipsoid, 58–82 × 21–27 µm, 8 – spored. Ascospores 3 – septate, dark brown when matured, ellipsoid, sometimes slightly constricted at the septa, (20) – 22.9 – (26) + / – 2.4 × (8) – 9 – (11) + / – 1.0 µm, N = 45. Asexual form. Capnophialophora – The only known asexual form for the species. Phialides appear on hyphae, ascomata initials, ascomata appendages, and (not illustrated, but see fig. 6 J in Hughes (1972)), on ascospores. Venters light brown to brown, hemispherical to subspherical, 4.5–7 µm wide; collarettes pale brown, funnel-shaped to ellipsoidal 2.5–3.5 µm long with narrow basal constriction, 2.5–4 µm wide at their openings. No phialidic conidia observed. Hosts and distribution. Metacapnodium juniperi, the type species of Metacapnodium, is known from small subicula growing over juniper twigs in Scotland. Notes. In 2023, Sophie Furze kindly made a specimen available to us by collecting the specimen from East Inverness – shire, Scotland, a site close to the type locality in Scotland, from juniper, the type host, and then depositing the specimen in RBGE. Its sequenced ITS region falls among other species of Metacapnodium, as expected for the type species of its genus. (Fig. 2).