Hello Piet

here is a description by R.W.G. Dennis of a Scottish collection; his ascus and spore measurements are much lower than yours - I don't know how significant that is . . .

best wishes
Chris

Bonjour Piet,

Beaucoup d'éléments plaident en faveur de S. juniperi mais tes spores sont légèrement trop grosses pour cette espèce, et en général elles sont moins brunes et une cellule est généralement plus petite que l'autre.
Tes ascomatas sont bien hémisphériques, tu confirmes ? 
Ceci étant, je ne vois pas ce que cela pourrait être autre que cela.
Alain

England 1 - France 1

;)

Piet, tu peux voir des images ici également :
http://www.springerimages.com/Images/RSS/1-10.1007_s13225-011-0143-8-8

Alain

England 1 - France 1

;)

bien sûr . . . .

I have the same spore size as Piet

Zotto

Maintenant, je suis convaincu que c'est Seynesiella juniperi

Un grand merci à Chris, Alain et Zotto. Aussi à Ascofrance qui nous offre cette possibilité

Piet Bormans

Bonjour,
Certains ont toujours doute de cette détermination.

La raison : la forme de l'ascomata ne correspond pas à la description de
Müller & Arx 1962. C'est pourquoi j'ai fait quelques photos de clarifier.

Quelle est votre opinion ?

Piet Bormans 

I sent Walter Jaklitsch the problem and he also said that he does not really believe that this is S. juniperi. But for the present he did not have any better solution.

Zotto

Thank you very much, Zotto
Piet

Hello from PEI Canada:

Just to add to the confusion. Perhaps the Scottish collection to which Dennis refers is in fact a Stomiopeltis species. He mentions this in his book on British Ascomycetes. I also notice that Stomiopeltis juniperi is described in Ellis & Ellis (Microfungi on Land Plants. I'm inclined to go with Seynesiella for your collection. 

You probably have noticed these references but I thought it might be useful, nevertheless.

By the way, I have not seen this species in PEI but I will keep an eye out. 

Sincerely,

Adrian Carter

Strange that Saccardo gives an intermediate spore size, flat lens-shaped ascomata, and Juniperus communis, but he refers to a Spegazzini collection. I do not think that this is the holotype collection of Desmazieres.

Zotto

Dear Piet,

about your fungus on Juniperus again: I did not get a clear picture about the ascomata. Are they longish/columnar? Is the ascus-bearing part in the end, on a stipe? In that case it may be Pododimeria gallica, although in that species ascospores are even more asymmetric and up to 11 µm wide.

On the other hand, one of your images shows parallel rows of cells in the upper peridium, which is in line with thyriothecia-forming fungi. So, Seynesiella is in principle possible.

About Seynesiella juniperi: Wu et al. (Fungal Diversity 51) examined and illustrated a syntype of Desmazieres, i.e. it is original. It shows smaller, lighter and asymmetric ascospores, which is line with Dennis. I am not sure whether they saw the entire range of ascospores. It may be that the material was not quite mature, and that they missed larger and darker brown spores (??).

Müller & Arx give a kind of intermediate spore size of 20-25 x 7-9 µm (probably adapted from Saccardo in Sylloge Fungorum II: 664 (1883)-not Fungi Veneti, who should have copied it from Desmazieres. Unfortunately I do not have Desmazieres´paper. Arnaud (1918), who established Seynesiella, did not mention a spore size. Saccardo also called the spores hyaline to very dilute chlorine.

By the way, Stomiopeltis has small hyaline spores.

Best regards,
Walter Jakllitsch

?

Dears Zotto and Walter,

The Desmazières's description is online. Look at URL:

http://bibdigital.rjb.csic.es/spa/Libro.php?Libro=2204&Pagina=141


Best, Guy 

Je vous remercie Walter, Zotto et Guy pour cette information.


Piet Bormans