Caprettia
=PORINULA Vĕzda, 1975 non (Nyl.) Flagey, 1896 [see Vězda (2004: 62) for details]
=PORINELLA R.Sant. ex Vězda, 2004
Type : Caprettia amazonensis Bat. & H.Maia
Type : Porinula tanzanica Vězda [=Caprettia tanzanica (Vězda) Lücking & Sérusiaux]
Type : Porinella tanzanica (Vězda) Vězda [=Caprettia tanzanica (Vězda) Lücking & Sérusiaux]
Description : Thallus foliicolous, subcuticular or supracuticular, smooth, ecorticate. Photobiont green, Cephaleuros or Phycopeltis. Ascomata perithecia sessile, warted to subglobose, pale yellowish to reddish brown to dark-brown or brown-black, glabrous or irregularly pilose or setose. Exciple of densely intricating hyphae with hyaline to dark-brown walls. Hamathecium of paraphyses, richly branched and anastomosing, c. 1 μm thick. Periphyses present, simple, c. 10 × 1 μm. Asci fissitunicate, clavate, shortly but distinctly stalked, thick-walled, 2–8-spored, usually without any visible apical structures, although an apical chamber is seen in young asci. Ascospores hyaline, oblong-ellipsoidal to drop-shaped, straight or curved, 1-septate, slightly constricted at septum and generally with distal cell enlarged. Conidiomata pycnidia, produced at base or at mid-height in a colourless or black, hair-like, 0.5–1.7-mm-long tube arising on thallus surface. Pycnidial periphyses present at base of ostiolar tube, unbranched, simple, 7–10 × 1 μm. Conidiophores absent. Conidiogenous cells unbranched, simple, 8–13 × 1 μm. Conidia usually ellipsoidal, simple, hyaline, 2–6 × 1.5–4 μm, produced singly but, as soon as they are introduced into the ostiolar tube, becoming aggregated into gelatinous, cylindrical sacs that are extruded from the pycnidial beak as single diaspores.
Caprettia, a genus of five species included in the Dothideomycetes incertae sedis (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Eriksson 2005), is an epiphyllous genus with characteristic hair-like, tubular pycnidia, producing gelatinous, cylindrical sacs containing conidia, that are extruded as diaspores from the tips of the conidial tubes (Sérusiaux & Lücking 2003). Caprettia is related to Anisomeridium (q.v.). The genus Porinula Vězda (Vězda 1975) is conspecific with Caprettia and was used for two species, one restricted to East Africa, and a second species discovered in New Zealand by Dr Bill Malcolm in 1993 (Malcolm & Vězda 1995d). Caprettia was recently monographed by Sérusiaux & Lücking (2003) who accept two subgenera, viz. subgen. Caprettia, including the generitype C. amazonensis (distinguished by subcuticular thalli and Cephaleuros as photobiont), and subgen. Porinula (Vězda) Sérusiaux & Lücking, the remaining four species (distinguished by supracuticular, epiphyllous thalli and Phycopeltis as photobiont). In a recent paper Vězda (2004: 62–63) reports that Porinula Vězda is a later homonym of Porinula (Nyl.) Flagey (itself a synonym of Porina), and described a new genus, Porinella R.Sant. ex Vězda, for taxa formerly accommodated in Porinula Vězda. However, these taxa were already transferred to Caprettia (Sérusiaux & Lücking 2003), making Porinella an additional synonym of Caprettia (see above).
