Beskidomyces Czachura & Piątek, in Crous et al., Persoonia 50: 301 (2023)
Index Fungorum Number: IF 848108; Facesoffungi Number: FoF 15326
Etymology — Named after Beskidy Mts, the mountains within the Carpathians, where the new fungus was discovered.
Mycelium composed of branched, septate, hyaline, smooth hyphae, sometimes in fascicles; hyphae develop into macroconidia and phialides with microconidia. Macroconidia intercalary or terminal on hyphae or side branches, solitary or rarely in short chains, globose, subglobose or broadly ellipsoid, hyaline, smooth. Conidiophores reduced to phialides, cylindrical or elongated, hyaline, smooth, with indistinct collarettes. Microconidia ellipsoidal, hyaline, smooth, at first accumulating at the apices of the phialides, but later readily disintegrating.
Type species — Beskidomyces laricis Czachura & Piątek
Note — Beskidomyces is a new genus in the family Pseudeurotiaceae of the order Thelebolales, characterized by production of two types of conidia: macroconidia formed intercalary or terminally on hyphae or side branches (with appearance and equivalent to typical conidia known in other genera of the Pseudeurotiaceae; they are named here as macroconidia to distinguish them from microconidia) and microconidia produced on phialides with indistinct collarettes. Phylogenetic analyses placed Beskidomyces laricis in an isolated position within Pseudeurotiaceae, sister to a lineage formed by representatives of predominantly soil-inhabiting genera Solomyces, Geomyces, Gymnostellatospora, Pseudogeomyces, Ovadendron and Pseudogymnoascus. The next closely related genus is Leuconeurospora. Phylogenetic placement of Ovadendron (Sigler & Carmichael 1976) within Thelebolales is revealed here for the first time. Morphologically, the production of two types of conidia distinguishes Beskidomyces from most other related genera in the Pseudeurotiaceae (e.g., Sigler & Carmichael 1976, Sigler et al. 2000, Sogonov et al. 2005, Zhang et al. 2020, 2021, 2023; though Leuconeurospora sometimes may produce both conidia and arthroconidia, Malloch et al. 2016). The type species, Beskidomyces laricis, was isolated only once from the resin of Larix decidua ssp. polonica growing in an old mixed forest in the Polish Carpathians (specifically, in the Beskid Niski Mts, which is part of the Beskidy Mts). Megablast searches in GenBank did not reveal any sequence that could belong to this species. The resinous habitat occupied by Beskidomyces laricis is a new ecological niche for Thelebolales.
Species