Nectria (Fr.) Fr.
Type : Sphaeria cinnabarina Tode: Fr. [=Nectria cinnabarina (Tode: Fr.) Fr., type cons.]
Description : Thallus parenchymatous, well-developed, stromatose, on decaying bark, leaves, lichenicolous or muscicolous. Ascomata perithecia, superficial, generally aggregated in a stroma, subglobose, globose to ellipsoidal, collapsing, cupulate, red to dark-red, K+ purple, ostiolate, with relatively thick walls, > 25 μm, often with warted outer region of thick-walled cells. Asci 8-spored. Ascospores broadly ellipsoidal to long-fusiform, simple, 1-multi-septate or muriform, hyaline to yellow-brown, smooth to striate. Conidiomata pycnidia.
Nectria is a genus included in the family Nectriaceae (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Eriksson 2005). Brayford et al. (2004) note of it "…the genus Nectria … is a classic genus of pyrenomycetes in the sense that its species have been known since it was described early in the 19th century, and over the years many species from temperate and tropical regions have been included in it. The stereotypical Nectria has a brightly coloured perithecium – usually red – that is seated directly on a woody substratum (e.g., Booth 1959). Closer consideration of the diversity that has been included in Nectria, along with DNA sequence analysis, has shown the genus to be polyphyletic. Nectria is now restricted to its type …and a relatively small number of similar species (Rossman 1989; Rehner & Samuels 1994; Rossman et al. 1999)…". One species is recorded here as a parasite of Thelotrema lepadinum.
