Melomastia Nitschke ex Sacc.

Xu, Rui-Fang, Karunarathna, Samantha C., Phukhamsakda, Chayanard, Dai, Dong-Qin, Elgorban, Abdallah M., Suwannarach, Nakarin, Kumla, Jaturong, Wang, Xiao-Yan & Tibpromma, Saowaluck, 2024, Four new species of Dothideomycetes (Ascomycota) from Para Rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) in Yunnan Province, China, MycoKeys 103, pp. 71-95 : 71

Melomastia Nitschke ex Sacc.

Notes.

Melomastia was introduced by Saccardo (1875) with M. mastoidea as the type species ( Kang et al. 1999). Melomastia has been recorded with 63 epithets in Index Fungorum (2024). Most Melomastia species have been found in terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats and they have a wide geographical distribution in Africa, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland and the United States of America ( Norphanphoun et al. 2017; Dayarathne et al. 2020; Li et al. 2022; Kularathnage et al. 2023). Melomastia was discovered to be closely related to Dyfrolomyces and their exact relationship is still unknown. Li et al. (2022) reclassified Dyfrolomyces as Melomastia , based on morphology and phylogeny of four newly-introduced species from Olive in Sichuan Province, China. Melomastia tiomanensis and M. chromolaenae exhibit spindle-shape, 6-11-septate ascospores with acute ends. Additionally, the phylogenetic analysis conducted by Kularathnage et al. (2023) showed that M. tiomanensis and M. chromolaenae form a distinct lineage. Thus, M. tiomanensis and M. chromolaenae were moved into Dyfrolomyces and named Dyfrolomyces tiomanensis and Dyfrolomyces chromolaenae . Melomastia is characterised by immersed, ostiolate ascomata, multiple layered, dark brown peridium, filamentous pseudoparaphyses, unitunicate, cylindrical, 8-spored asci and ovoid, hyaline, 1-10-septate, fusiform to oblong ascospores with rounded or acute ends, with or without gelatinous sheath ( Norphanphoun et al. 2017; Dayarathne et al. 2020; Li et al. 2022; Kularathnage et al. 2023). However, the asexual morph of Melomastia is still unknown ( Norphanphoun et al. 2017; Li et al. 2022; Kularathnage et al. 2023).