Abstract
A novel saprobic fungal genus,
Thyridariella
(Thyridariaceae), is herein described to include
Thyridariella mangrovei
, the type species and
T. mahakoshae
spp. nov. Both species were collected as saprobes on decaying wood of
Avicennia marina
, a common mangrove species found near Kaveri River Delta, Tamil Nadu, on the east coast of India.
Thyridariella
is diagnosed by having an exclusive combination of characters, such as ascomata with ostiolar necks thickened laterally, hyaline, and centrally constricted muriform ascospores with a single longitudinal septum in each segment and surrounded by a mucilaginous sheath. These characters demarcate these taxa from morphologically similar genera such as
Halojulella
and
Julella
. In addition, the new genus also differs from
Parathyridaria
and
Thyridaria
in having hyaline, muriform ascospores with distinct mucilaginous sheaths. The monophyly of
Thyridariella
is well supported in the phylogenetic analysis based on a concatenated dataset from two proteins and three nuclear gene regions. The phylogeny also depicts a sister group relationship of our new genus to
Parathyridaria
and
Thyridaria
and hence confirms its position within Thyridariaceae.