Genus Thripomyces Speg.

MB#5456

Anales del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Buenos Aires 27: 71 (Spegazzini 1915b). –

Type species: T. italicus Speg.

Brief description

Monoecious or dioecious? Receptacle uniseriate, consisting of numerous superposed cells bearing a terminal perithecium; 4–6 basal cells of the receptacle broad and flattened.

Remarks

With only two European species, one in Denmark. This genus included only the type species T. italicus until Majewski (1990c) described a second species from Poland, T. tessinensis, which is distinguished from the type by the presence of a lateral darkened foot, a shorter thallus (up to 200 µm, Majewski 1994b), and a stout, apically blunt, almost neckless perithecium.

This is a weird genus with an unclear systematic position. Tavares (1985) placed it in the Drepanomyceteae after studying the type collection of T. italicus . The presence of antheridia is not yet well understood and has led to the suggestion that the genus is perhaps dioecious, a feature which is supported by the presence of reduced, maybe male thalli joined by the base with normal mature perithecia-bearing thalli (Santamaria 1993a).