Dictyocheirospora splendida Y. Wang & Z. L. Luo 2025, sp. nov.

Dictyocheirospora splendida Y. Wang & Z. L. Luo sp. nov. Fig. 3 Etymology. Referring to the glistening colony on natural substrates. Holotype. KUN-HKAS 135954. Description. Saprobic on submerged decaying wood. Sexual morph: Undetermined. Asexual morph: Hyphomycetous. Colonies glistening on natural substrate, in small pulvinate groups, scattered on surface, dark brown, velvety. Mycelium immersed on substrate, composed of brown, smooth, septate, branched hyphae. Conidiophores micronematous, mononematous, hyaline to pale brown, 4–5 μm wide, mostly reduced to conidiogenous cells. Conidiogenous cells 6–11 × 3–6 μm (x ̄ = 8.5 × 4.7 μm, n = 10), holoblastic, integrated, terminal, cylindrical, hyaline to pale brown, smooth-walled. Conidia 37–43 × 14–17 μm (x ̄ = 40 × 16 μm, n = 30) solitary, acrogenous, cheiroid, with a basal connecting cell, brown to yellow-brown, arranged in 6 compact rows closely clustered at the apex, with each row composed of 6–9 cells, euseptate, with one appendage at the center of conidia. Culture characteristics. Conidia germinating on PDA within 12 h and germ tubes produced at the base (Fig. 3 k). Colonies grew on PDA at 22 ° C, circular, white at margin and light gray in the center, slightly raised on surface cottony, with mycelium partially infiltrating into the culture and white on the edge, grayish-white in the middle on the reverse side. Material examined. China • Yunnan Province, Dulongjiang River, on submerged decaying wood, 2 May 2023 (Altitude: 1418 m, 27.783341°N, 98.330741°E), Ying Wang, S 4957 (KUN-HKAS 135954, holotype); ex-type culture, KUNCC 23-15971. Notes. In the phylogenetic analyses, Dictyocheirospora splendida was basal to D. garethjonesii and D. nabanheensis, with 83 % ML and 0.98 PP support (Fig. 1). The new strain KUNCC 23-15971 has 2.29 % (11 / 480 bp) ITS and 3.14 % (26 / 829 bp) tef 1 - α base pair difference from D. nabanheensis (MFLUCC 17-0562) as well as 2.55 % (13 / 509 bp) ITS and 2.55 % (31 / 874 bp) tef 1 - α base pair difference from D. garethjonesii (DLUCC 0848). However, LSU sequences of these three species are identical. Morphologically, D. splendida has sporodochial conidiomata, darkly pigmented, micronematous or semi-macronematous conidiophores, and acrogenous, cheiroid, and brown-colored conidia, which match the characteristics of Dictyocheirospora (Boonmee et al. 2016). However, D. nabanheensis exhibits distinct conidial appendages (Tibpromma et al. 2018 b), which were inconspicuous in D. splendida. In addition, D. splendida exhibits a significant difference in conidial size compared to D. garethjonesii (40 × 16 μm vs. 50 × 20 μm) (Boonmee et al. 2016). Based on morphological and phylogenetic analysis, we introduce Dictyocheirospora splendida as a new species.