Polyphasic taxonomy of Penicillium subgenus Penicillium A ... - CBS

and more compact than those of the other sections insubgenus Penicillium: Characteristically, the numberof branches per verticil is larger and the metulae andbranches are shorter and appear clavate or swollen.Phialides have a broadly cylindrical base and a short,narrow neck. Looking superficially like Aspergillusheads in the stereomicroscope, the conidia adhere indivergent to radiating tangled chains, whereas in theother sections of subgenus Penicillium they developin parallel chains, which may become somewhattangled in age. Conidia subglobose, pear-shaped tobroadly ellipsoidal, with walls finely roughened,sometimes appearing smooth. All species produceasperphenamate and the unknown metabolite O(Svendsen and Frisvad, 1994; Frisvad et al., 1990a).The species are common in all parts of the world,with P. olsonii being more common in tropical regions.Thriving in mountainous areas of the tropics,especially coffee estates, they also thrive in greenhousesand are common on tomatoes. P. brevicompactumand P. bialowiezense are also common onmushrooms, where they can produce conspicuousgreen colonies directly on the basidiocarps. The havealso been found in yoghurts, liver patees and manyother processed foods at low water activities. See alsothe description of the section Coronata above. Thissection only contains one series: Olsonii.The series lacks known teleomorphs state, but fewtropical strains of P. olsonii can produce large whitesclerotia (see Fig. 2 F).Fig. 7. Conidiophores and conidia of (A) Penicilliumolsonii and (B) P. brevicompactum.Series Olsonii contains only three closely relatedspecies: P. olsonii, P. brevicompactum and P. bialowiezense.They differ mainly in the complexity ofPOLYPHASIC TAXONOMY OF SUBGENUS PENICILLIUMtheir penicilli. In P. brevicompactum and P. bialowiezensebranches are often single, although occasionallytwo to three of them may occur per branchingpoint, whereas typical penicilli of P. olsoniiproduce a compact verticil of up to six branches,developing on the apex and sometimes also on thesubapical part of the stipe. However, deterioratedstrains of P. olsonii produce smaller verticils ofbranches.Penicilli of P. olsonii are sometimes suggestive ofthe conidial structures from the section Inordinata(which contains only P. arenicola). The shape of thephialides and the brown colour of the colonies distinguishInordinate from the section Coronata and wehave excluded the former section from subgenusPenicillium.P. brevicompactum has many synonyms. Most ofthese were described by Zaleski and one more wellknownspecies, P. stoloniferum, was accepted byRaper and Thom (1949). We have examined ex typestrains of P. griseobrunneum (NRRL 867), P. stoloniferum(CBS 236.51), P. hagemii (CBS 316.59), P.patris-mei (CBS 210.28) and P. brunneostoloniferum(CBS 317.59). They all have the typical morphologyof P. brevicompactum and furthermore all producemycophenolic acid, brevianamide A and the Raistrickphenols and are clearly synonyms of this commonspecies. Strains of P. tabescens and P. szaferi werenot available for study, so we follow Raper and Thom(1949) and Pitt (1979) in suggesting these as synonymsof P. brevicompactum.P. volgaense (CBS 626.72) and P. brevicompactumvar. magnum (IJFM 5954) were entirely typicalof P. olsonii. P. monstrosum was unavailable forstudy, but Sopps protologue indicates that this was aP. olsonii rather than a P. brevicompactum as suggestedby Raper and Thom (1949) and Pitt (1979).Using multilocus DNA sequence analysis Peterson(2004) recognized P. brevicompactum, P. olsoniiand a third clade which he assigned to P. biourgeianumZaleski. Examination of the ex-type NRRL865 of P. biourgeianum showed that it is identicalwith P. bialowiezense Peterson (2004) found that theculture NRRL 863 of P. bialowiezense is identicalwith P. polonicum. However, in our study we examinedthe ex-type of P. bialowiezense CBS 227.38,which was originally deposited at CBS by K. Zaleski.Therefore NRRL 863, which was sent later to C.Thom, can be considered a contaminant. Our examinationof NRRL 863 showed that it has the typicalextrolite production of P. cyclopium. It is somewhatdifferent from P. cyclopium by its good sporulationon YES and the dark reverse on CYA.Section Roqueforti Frisvad & Samson sect. nov.Sectio generis Penicillium subgeneris Penicillium,penicillis asymmetrice terverticillatis, stipitibus rugosis,15