Syncephalastrum bagoolii Yadav Lal Sahab, Singh P.N. & A.L. Santiago, 2025

Yadav, Lal Sahab, Sharma, Monica, Cordeiro, Thalline Rafhaella Leite, Santiago, André Luiz Cabral Monteiro De Azevedo & Singh, Paras Nath, 2025, Syncephalastrum bagoolii (Syncephalastraceae, Mucorales), a new fungus from India, Phytotaxa 691 (2), pp. 188-200 : 191-192

Syncephalastrum bagoolii Yadav Lal Sahab, Singh P.N. & A.L. Santiago sp. nov. ( Figure 1 )

Mycobank: MB856482

Etymology:—The species epithet refers to the name of Emeritus Prof. Dr. Ravindra G. Bagool in honour of his 80 th Birthday and his 35 year’s contribution to Botany and Mycology.

Holotype:— INDIA. Maharashtra: Smt. C.H.M College, Ulhasnagar Thane, 19°22′ 03″N 73°9′49″E, media contaminant, 25 August 2024, Ms. Monica Sharma & Lal Sahab Yadav (Holotyp e— AMH10776 , ex-type culture NFCCI 5935 ). GenBank Accession number: ITS= PQ661356, LSU = PQ666446 .

Colonies floccose with dense mycelium, growing rapidly (90 mm diam.) after 5 days at 27 oC on PDA, firstly white and becoming greyish olive at maturity; reverse pale white and zonate. Hyphae branched, regularly septate 7–20 µm (x̄=11 µm, n=25) wide, smooth-walled; stolon septate near the place of origin of merosporangiophores. Rhizoids regularly branched, bulbus lobed, root like. Merosporangiophores hyaline to light brownish, usually curved, circinate, variable in length, short to tall, short 40–65 × 3–5 µm, tall 115–135 × 5.5–6 µm, (x̄=89.5 × 5.2 µm, n=30), simple, monopodially or sympodially branched 3–5 times, swollen at the base with 2–3 septa, terminating with vesicle; lateral branches simple to monopodially branched (1–2 times) curved to circinate 25–140 × 2–5 µm (x̄=51 × 3.33 µm, n=50). Axial vesicles globose, 6–28 μm (x̄=13.37 μm, n=75) in diam., rarely sub-globose, ovoid, and papillate, 22–32 × 12–25 μm (x̄=28.5 × 20, n=25), wall smooth or rugose with merosporangia formed all over their surface; vesicles of lateral branches globose, 5–15 μm diam., wall smooth or rugose. Merosporangia initially obovate to clavate, mature merosporangia elongated, usually with 4–9 merospores, up to 15–20 μm in length attached on vesicle with a prominent denticle, evanescent-walled. Merospores globose 3–4 μm (x̄=3.9 μm, n=50) diam., subglobose 4–6 × 3–4 μm (x̄=5.33 × 3.4 μm, n=30), basal merospores obovate, elongated, toothed, 3–9 × 2–5 μm (x̄=5.8 × 3.6 μm, n=75) with dark persistent denticles, after detaching from the vesicles, smooth-walled. Chlamydospores and zygospores not observed.

Notes: The morphological comparison with allied taxa showed that Syncephalastrum bagoolii is morphologically distinct from other species of Syncephalastrum ( Table 2).

Distribution: India.

Additional specimen examined: INDIA. MAHARASHTRA: Ulhasnagar, Botany Research laboratory Smt. C. H. M. College, Ulhasnagar, Thane 19°22′ 03″N 73°9′49″E contaminant, 10 September 2024, Jitendra Patil and Lal Sahab Yadav (NFCCI 5936, living culture).

Media and temperature test: strains NFCCI-5935 and NFCCI-5936 showed luxuriant growth at 27 and 35 °C on both PDA and MEA media with 9 cm diam. growth in five days. However, the sporulation was better at temperature of 35 than at 27 °C. Growth was very restricted at 40 °C (1.5 cm in 10 days) with no growth at temperature of 45 °C. On MEA, colony fast growing, light grey, floccose with sparse mycelium covering entire plate (9 cm diam.) and touching lid of plate after 5 days of incubation at 27°C, reverse white.

Figures

FIGURE1. Maximum likelihood (RAxML) tree using sequences combined of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large subunit (LSU) ribosomal DNA (rDNA) included in Syncephalastrum conducted in RAxML in the CIPRES science gateway. Confidence values for ML- BS ≥ 50 % (UFboot2/RAxML) and BPP ≥ 0.50 are included near the nodes, and the “*” indicates statistical support below the threshold values. The scale bar represents the expected number of changes per site. Bayesian inference (BI) was conducted in MrBayes on XSEDE v. 3.2.7a. The substitution model GTR+G+I was used for the alignment in the ML and GTR+G in the BI analyses. The specimens described in this study are highlighted in bold and blue. Lichtheimia piauiensis URM 8358 and Lichtheimia ramosa CBS 582.65 were used as an outgroup. Ex-type, ex-neotype, and ex-holotype strains are marked with T, NT, and HT, respectively.