Triblidiaceae (Rhytismatales) currently consists of two genera: Triblidium and Huangshania. Triblidium is the type genus and is characterised by melanized apothecia that occur scattered or in small clusters on the substratum, cleistohymenial (opening in the mesohymenial phase), inamyloid thin-walled asci and hyaline muriform ascospores. Before this study, only the type species, Triblidium caliciiforme, had DNA sequences in the NCBI GenBank. In this study, six specimens of Triblidium were collected from China and France and new ITS, mtSSU, LSU and RPB2 sequences were generated. Our molecular phylogenetic analysis and morphological study demonstrated three new species of Triblidium, which are formally described here: T. hubeiense, T. rostriforme and T. yunnanense. Additionally, our results indicated that Huangshania that was considered to be distinct from Triblidium because of its elongated, transversely-septate ascospores, is congeneric with Triblidium. Therefore, we have placed Huangshania in synonymy under Triblidium, rendering Triblidiaceae a monotypic family.
Keywords: Huangshania; Triblidiaceae; muriform ascospores; phylogenetic; taxonomy; three new taxa.
Tu Lv, Cheng-Lin Hou, Peter R. Johnston.