Nigrocornus scleroticus, a common Old World balansioid fungus

Abstract

ABSTRACT
Prior to Diehl’s (1950) monograph of Balansia and the Balansiae, the literature on the balansioid genera was restricted predominantly to descriptions of new taxa. Diehl attempted to bring order to the taxonomy of the balansioid fungi. He recognized three tribes in the Family Clavicipitaceae Subfamily Clavicipitoideae, namely, Clavicipitaceae, Ustilaginoideae, and the Balansiae, that classification being based on fundamental differences in the anamorph of the members of each tribe. In the Balansiae (more correctly Balansieae), he included any fungus with the following characteristics: a basal stroma (hypothallus) covering or enclosing some part of the host, on which an anamorph referrable to Ephelis Fr. and/or Neotyphodium Link. [=Acremonium Link. Sect. Albolanosa Morgan-Jones & Gams (Glenn et al., 1996)] developed, following by a teleomorph consisting of an effuse, capitate, or stipitate ascostromata with ostiolate perithecia.