Vouauxiomyces Dyko & D.Hawksw.
Type : * Vouauxiomyces truncatus (de Lesd.) Dyko & D.Hawksw. [* Phoma truncata de Lesd.]
Description : Lichenicolous. Conidiomata pycnidia, arising singly, subglobose, semi-immersed, dark-brown; walls of thick-walled pseudoparenchymatous cells forming a textura angularis, with a small ostiole. Conidiophores absent. Conidiogenous cells lining the pycnidial cavity ampulliform to lageniform, percurrently proliferating, hyaline, discrete, smooth-walled. Conidia holoblastic, clavate to pyriform, hyaline to slightly yellowish, simple, 1–3-guttulate, apex rounded and base truncate, collecting in a mucilaginous drop outside the ostiole, weakly minutely echinulate, hyaline.
Teleomorph (perfect state): Abrothallus De Not.
* Vouauxiomyces is a genus of lichenicolous fungi belonging to anamorphic * Abrothallus (Kirk et al. 2001) and is similar to * Lichenoconium (q.v.). However, it differs from it in several respects, viz. the shape of the conidia, which are essentialy hyaline; the presence of guttules; the conidia aggregating in a mucilaginous mass outside the ostiole; the surface features of the conidia; and the more definite ostiole. The ornamentation of the outer wall of the conidia in the two genera is also distinct. In * Lichenoconium the majority of species have condia with compacted, warty ornamentation, while in * Vouauxiomyces the conidia have minute, widely spaced, echinulate ornamentation (Hawksworth & Dyko 1979). At present four species are known, all being anamorphs of * Abrothallus (Hawksworth & Dyko 1979; Hawksworth 1981; Kondratyuk 1996; Lawrey & Diederich 2003; Etayo & Osorio 2004), one of which occurs in New Zealand, although the recently described * V. brattii, which parasitises Pseudocyphellaria faveolata in Tasmania (Kondratyuk 1996), may also well occur here.
