Developments in the taxonomy of anamorphic fungi
Author(s): Invited papers presented at the Symposium "Taxonomy of Fungi imperfecti" during the Fourth International Mycological Congress, Regensburg.
Details: 104 pp., paperback, 1990
Considerable progress has been made in the delimitation of many old and large genera of Coelomycetes in the last three decades. Von Arx (Colletotrichum versus Gloeosporium), Boerema and co-workers (Phoma and Ascochyta), and Van der Aa (Phyllosticta) have given well circumscribed generic concepts, based on modern biological and morphological criteria, including conidiogenesis. Punithalingam (1979, 1988) has started a. series of monographs of the genus Ascochyta, and Sutton (1977 and 1980) summarized his observations on numerous genera of Coelomycetes. At the moment, it is possible to classify a rather large number of common Coelomycetes in well-defined genera, but many other species await a modern treatment. Examples are the Coniothyrium sensu lato complex and the Dothiorella-Fusicoccum-Sphaeropsis complex, with hundreds of species remaining to be properly characterized. The real problem for taxonomists, phytopathologists and workers in applied fields is the identification of species within the well-defined genera. Hundreds, and sometimes thousands of species have been described following obsolete Saccardoan concepts, based on a restricted number of partly irrelevant characters, including a strict application of host specificity. [p. 4] The aim of this paper is to give a survey of the results of taxonomic studies at the specific level in some of the large genera and to make some predictions of future developments. We have chosen the genera Phoma (incl. Phyllosticta), Phomopsis and Colletotrichum, since they are representative of the overall situation and the subject of long-term cooperative studies by several Dutch mycologists.
