Aptrootia
Aptrootia Lücking & Sipman, in Lücking et al., Lichenologist 39(2): 188 (2007).
Index Fungorum number: IF 29134; Facesoffungi number: FoF 08786, 3 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2022), 3 species with molecular data.
Saprobic on host. Thallus muscicolous or over debris, crustose, lichenized in patches, with thin, cartilaginous, corticiform layer, white grey, slightly shiny. Photobiont Trentepohlia, with elongate to angular rounded, green cells in irregular groups and threads. Sexual morph: Perithecia immersed and covered by a thin thallus layer, pyriform, exposing only the brown-black ostiolar region which appears radiately ridged when hydrated. Perithecial wall not differentiated into excipulum and involucrellum, inner layer and upper parts carbonized, black, outer layer light brown in thin sections. Ostiolar region with short periphysoids. Hamathecium of branched and anastomosing paraphysoids, thin and widely spaced, embedded in a gelatinous matrix. Asci fissitunicate, clavate, ocular chamber indistinct, when young with apically widening lateral walls. Ascospores single, muriform, distoseptate, dark brown when mature within the asci (young ascospores colourless and IKI+ blue). Asexual morph: Unknown (adapted from Lücking et al. 2007).
Type species: Aptrootia terricola (Aptroot) Lücking, Umaña & Chaves
Notes: Aptrootia terricola was previously known as Thelenella terricola, a terricolous and muscicolous, pyrenocarpous taxon. Aptrootia is characterised by totally immersed perithecia with brown-black ostiolar area, enclosed by a white, cartilaginous thallus similar to that of Gomphillaceae. The hamathecium is thin, anastomosing paraphysoids embedded in a gelatinous matrix. Aptrootia is unique and differs from similar genera in its unusual ecology and the dark brown ascospores. Aptrootia has been accommodated in Trypetheliaceae based on ascospores and hamathecium morphology as well as DNA sequence data. Molecular markers available for Aptrootia are LSU and mtSSU.
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