Peyronelina glomerulata

2 June 2024

What a beautiful and unusual species! This species was first described by Fisher et al. (1976) on decaying plant material in fresh water in England. However, Arnaud (1952) had previously seen the same species in Versailles, France during WWII, 1938 to 1944 (it appears that even a world war raging through your country is not enough to discourage a determined mycologist).

Peyronelina glomerulata is an aero-aquatic basidiomycete which is unusual. Most saprophytic fungi in aquatic habitats are ascomycetes.

A study by Yamaguchi et al. (2009) using 28S genes showed that P. glomerulata is closely related to marine aero-aquatic basidiomycetes, Nia vibrissa and Halocyphina villosa. Thankfully this species has germinated in culture and I look forward to sequencing more genes so that we can further understand how it is related to similar species.

These delicate white conidia are distinctive with a central body of almost spherical cells surrounded by encrusted white arms that wrap around the central body. I have now encountered this species twice on submerged decaying wood from the Murray River, South Australia.

Unfortunately it did not photograph well. I will use my extreme macro setup to attempt to get better images.

References
Arnaud, G (1952). Mycologie concrete. Genera. Bulletin trimestriel de la Societe Mywlogique de France 68, 181-223.

Fisher PJ, Webster J, Kane DF. 1976. Peyronelina glomerulata from submerged substrata in Britain. Transactions of the British Mycological Society 67:351–354.

Yamaguchi K, Degawa Y, Nakagiri A. 2009. An aero-aquatic fungus, Peyronelina glomerulata, is shown to have teleomorphic affinities with cyphelloid basidiomycetes. Mycoscience 50:156–164.