Morphology development and taxonomy of loramyces

Loramyces is a genus of freshwater Ascomycetes with two known species, L. juncicola and L. macrospora. Developmental and morphological studies show that Loramyces is best placed in the Helotiales, although it is usually classified in the Sphaeriales. Loramyces shows many adaptations to its exclusively aquatic environment, which have led to the difficulties in classification. The ascoma, which is surrounded by excipular hyphae at maturity, is wide open when immature. In mature ascomata, both the structure of the excipulum and of the paraphyses suggest affinity with the Helotiales. Ascus and ascospore characters are not comparable with those of any other genera and these features, in combination with the excipular characters, are such that the genus cannot be accommodated in any existing family, requiring that the family Loramycetaceae be validated for placement in the Helotiales. The anamorph of Loramyces juncicola, here referred to the form-genus Anguillospora, is described.