Abstract
Shiraiaceae
is an important family in
Pleosporales
(
Dothideomycetes
), which includes medical fungi and plant pathogens. Two hypocrellin-producing taxa,
Shiraia
bambusicola
and a novel genus
Rubroshiraia
gen. nov.
, typified by
Rubroshiraia
bambusae
are treated in this article. Maximum likelihood analysis, generated via RAxML (GTR+G model), using a combined
SSU
,
LSU
, TEF1 and RPB2 sequence dataset, shows that
Rubroshiraia
is close to
Shiraia
and belongs to the family
Shiraiaceae
. Descriptions, illustrations and a taxonomic key are provided for the genera in
Shiraiaceae
.
Rubroshiraia
morphologically differs from
Shiraia
in having small and dark ascostromata and filiform ascospores. Production of the ascostromatal metabolites, hypocrellin A and B, were examined by HPLC and spectrophotometer. The content of hypocrellin A and B of specimen
HKAS
102255 (
R.
bambusae
) is twice that produced by
HKAS
102253 (
S.
bambusicola
). To clarify the relationship between
R.
bambusae
and
Hypocrella
bambusae
, type material of the latter was examined and provided the illustration.