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Freshwater ascomycetes: Alascospora evergladensis, a new genus and species from the Florida Everglades

     Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Room 265 Morrill Hall, 505 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801

Helen A. Violi

     2935 SW 20th Street, Miami, Florida 33145

Carol A. Shearer

     Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Room 265 Morrill Hall, 505 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801

Alascospora evergladensis, a freshwater ascomycete collected from submerged dead petioles of Nymphaea odorata during a survey of aquatic fungi along a phosphorus gradient in the Florida Everglades, is described and illustrated as a new genus and species in the Pleosporales (Pleosporomycetidae, Dothideomycetes). The new fungus is unique among genera in the Pleosporales based on a combination of morphological characters that include light brown, translucent, membranous, ostiolate ascomata with dark, amorphous material irregularly deposited on the peridium, especially around the ostiole; globose, fissitunicate, thick-walled asci; septate pseudoparaphyses; and 1-septate ascospores that are hyaline when young, and surrounded by a hyaline gelatinous sheath that is wing-shaped in outline on each side of the ascospore. The sheath is distinctive in that it first expands in water and is translucent, then condenses and darkens around older ascospores, giving them a dark brown, verruculose appearance.

Key words: aquatic fungi, herbaceous, Nymphaea odorata, saprophyte, systematics