Notes and Brief Articles 527uniseriate below, rarely uniseriate throughout, fusoid, hyaline, thin­walled, aseptate, aguttulate. Paraphyses up to 2 pm wide, filiform, paleochraceous above, hyaline lower down in mass, hyaline individually,aseptate, thin-walled, almost level with tips of asci.

In the ascigerous region the ectal excipulum is up to go pm thick,textura porrecta, hyphal cells radially arranged, up to 28 X 12pm;medullary excipulum up to 110 pm thick, textura intricata, hyphae loose,up to 1·6 pm wide; hypothecium indistinct. The stipe is differentiated intocortex and medulla; cortex up to 80 pm thick, textura porrecta, hyphalcells compact, up to 26 x I I usx»; medulla up to 250 pm thick, texturaporrecta, hyphae loose, up to 1·6 pm wide.

This fungus has been collected only once from Parbati valley, Kuluhills, during 5 years of extensive collecting in this area (1965-9). It comesclose to Hymenoscyphus scutula (Pers. ex Fr.) Karst. which has smoothapothecia, broader asci (8-1 I pm) and occasionally r-septate ascosporesas described by Dennis (1956). This fungus can be easily diagnosed bythe stipitate apothecia, long asci (100-130 pm), fusoid, aseptate asco­spores and simple excipular structure.

Thanks are due to the United States Department of Agriculture,Agricultural Research Service (grant PI. 480) for financial help. Theauthors are deeply indebted to Dr R. W. G. Dennis, Royal BotanicGardens, Kew, for help in the identification of the species, valuablesuggestions and for rendering the Latin diagnoses of the species.

REFERENCES

DENNIS, R. W. G. (1956). A revision of the British Helotiaceae in the Herbarium ofRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew, with notes on related European species. MycologicalPapers 62, 1-216.

WHETZEL, H. H. (1943). A monograph of Lambertella, A genus of brown-spored inoper­culate Discomycetes. Lloydia 6, 18-52.

WHITE, W. L. (1941). A monograph of the genus Rutstroemia (Discomycetes), Lloydia 4,153-240 •

DEMATIACEOUS HYPHOMYCETES IN EGYPTIAN SOILS

A. H. MOUBASHER AND M. B. MAZEN

Botany Department, Assiut University, Egypt

Knowledge of dematiaceous hyphomycetes in Egyptian soils is limited.Sabet (1935) isolated eleven species belonging to Torula, Stachyhotrys,Dematium (Aureohasidium), Hormodendrum (Cladosporium), Helminthosporium,Stemph;ylium, Alternaria, Acrothecium (Curvularia) , and Macrosporium (Alter­naria). Besada & Yusuf (1968) described nine species as Egyptian recordsincluding Botryotrichum, Nigrospora, Gilmaniella, Cladosporium, Scolecohasidum,Torula, Curvularia and Alternaria. Moubasher & Moustafa (1970) surveyedEgyptian soil fungi, but focused more on Aspergillus, Penicillium and

Trans. Br. mycol. Soc. 59 (3), (1972). Printed in Great Britain

528 Transactions British Mycological SocietyPenicillium-related genera. Fourteen species of dematiaceous hyphomyceteswere recorded. The present work was undertaken to collect more preciseinformation about these fungi and their distribution in Egyptian soils.

Sixty-five soil samples were collected, as described by Johnson, Curl,Bond & Fribourg (1959) in different localities from September 1967 toMarch 1968. They were classified by mechanical analysis into soil typesfollowing the scheme of Comber (1960). The clay type (39 samples) wasmainly from agricultural fields in the Nile Valley which are regularlycultivated and irrigated by Nile water. The sandy types (10 samples) weregathered either from bare desert, beside desert plants or from fields, alongthe coastal strip of the Mediterranean Sea, such fields are cultivated withbarley and fig trees since these crops depend upon rainfall which some­times amounts to more than 200 mm per annum. Other soil types includ­ing silty loam (5 samples), sandy clay (4 samples), silty clay (2 samples),loamy sand (2 samples) and sandy loam (2 samples) were collected fromthe borders of the Nile Valley, Oases located in the Western Desert, orfrom the coastal regions of the Mediterranean and Red Seas. One sample(salty clay) was collected from a salty marshy locality beside Lake Qarun,

The organic matter content ranged between 1'3-3'9 % of dry soil incultivated clay soil and 0,66-1'2 % in sandy soil. The total soluble saltsfluctuated between 0'01-0'1 % in clay soil and 43'2 % in salt marshes.Sandy soil showed moderate salinity ranging between 0'1 and 2'5 %. Allsoils were alkaline and their pH ranged from 7.6 to 8'g.

Estimation of soil fungi was by the dilution plate method described byJohnson et al. (1959). Menzies dipper (1957) was used to maintain anappropriate final soil dilution which supported a total count of about25 colonies per plate. The highest dilutions (1 /5000 and I II 000) wereused in the case offertile clay and the lowest (1/10-1/200) in desert sand.Modified Czapek's agar was used in which glucose (loll) replacedsucrose and to which was added rose bengal at a concentration of1/1500 as a bacteriostatic agent (Smith & Dawson, 1944). Six plates foreach soil sample were incubated at 25° and examined daily. The totalcount of fungi, as well as dematiaceous hyphomycete genera and species,was determined at the end of the incubation period.

Eleven genera and twenty-three species of dernatiaceous hyphomyceteswere isolated from the sixty-five soil samples (Table I) , of which Humicolagrisea, Stachybotrys atra and Cladosporium herbarum were dominant. Mou­basher & Moustafa (1970) also recorded Acrosperiafluctuata Tandon & Bilgr.,Curvularia tetramera (McKinney) Boed., Nigrospora sphaerica (Sacc.) Mason,Papularia arundinis (Corda) Fr. and Torula sp" none of which were isolatedin the present investigation. The results showed no selective distributionof dernatiaceous species in the various soil types. Similarly, Moubasher &Moustafa (1970) observed no selective distribution of Aspergillus species inthe different types of soil collected from the Nile Valley and from Egyptiandeserts. Together the observations may add further support to the sug­gestion that there is no fungus flora characteristic of desert soils (Ranzoni,1968).

Trans. Br, mycol. Soc. 59 (3), (1972). Printed in Great Britain

~

'" ~.,.tl:l

Table I. Total count and number of isolations of dematiaceous hyphomycete species from different soils;<

~~ No. of isolations.~ Soil type~ .

Con I ,10 Total Silty Sandy Silty Loamy Sandy Salty

~ No. of samples count I!' Total Clay Sandy loamy clay clay sandy loamy clay

~

(65) (39) (10) (5) (4) (2) (2) (2) (I)

<0 HumicolagriseaTraaen 82'0 35 29 2 3 0 I 0 0 0

~"-J

.!::. Stachybotrys atra Corda 62'7 33 19 7 2 I I I 2 0

Cladosporium herbarum (Pers.) Link ex Fr. 7 1'1 27 15 4 3 2 2 I 0 0 -~l't>

Alternaria alternata (Fr.) Keiss, 16'4 23 10 5 2 I 2 I I I '"s- Humicolafuscoatra Traaen 15'0 18 9 4 0 I 2 I I 0 sl;I'"'- Curoularia lunata (Wakk.) Baed. 13'4 16 II 0 I I I 0 2 0s: C. tenuissimum Cke 28,8 7 I

~15 4 I I 0 I 0

ttl~ C. spicifera (Bain.) Boed. 7'1 14 9 0 I 2 I 0 0 I

a. Scolecobasidium constrictum Abbott 3 6'4 13 10 I 0 I 0 0 I 0 ::1.t:l:J Cladosporium sphaerospermum Penz. 18'0 12 6 I 2 I I 0 I 0 ~::I, Scolecobasidium uariabile Barron & Busch 10·6 II B 2 0 I 0 0 0 0 ~or Trimmatostroma salicisCorda 10'2 10 0 6 I I I 1 0 0s: ""t

Drechslera halodes (Drechsl.) Subram. & Jain 5'7 7 6 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 ;:Ulocladium atrum Preuss 3'0 4 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 0

~.

~U. botrytis Preuss 2'9 4 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 '"Stachybotrys lobulata Berk. 1'2 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0Curoularia tuberculata Jain o'S 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 I 0

Helminthosporium maydisNisiki & Mke, 1'2 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0H. holmii Luttrell 0'1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0

H. sativum Pamm., King & Bakke 0'3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Pleurophragmium sp. 0'3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Stempbylium botryosum Wallr. 0,8 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

Scolecobasidium terreum Abbott 0'08 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0a:0< * Count per 1 mg dry soil in every sample.ou.10 V\

tv\0

530 Transactions British Mycological SocietyBy calculating the ratios of the numbers of cases of isolation of each

species from sandy and clay soils to the total numbers of samples examinedof the two types of soil, it was shown that the majority of species wererelatively more frequently isolated from sandy than from clay soils. In thisconnexion it is interesting that Sabet (1935) isolated Stachybotrys andDematium (Aureobasidium) pullulans from sandy soil and Alternaria geophilawhich occurred in rather large numbers in sandy soils.

The percentage population (calculated to total fungi) of dematiaceoushyphomycetes was also correlated with soil type. Most of the sandy soilsshowed relatively higher percentages of fungi than those obtained in claysoils. The average percentage population of these fungi was 28 and 13 %in sandy and clay soils respectively. The prevalence of dark-coloureddeuteromycetes was reported in sandy soils of 'dayas', French Sahara(Nicot, 1960), and of the Sonoran Desert, U.S.A. (Ranzoni, 1968). Theirdominance in desert soils may be related to mechanisms affording protec­tion against desiccation, strong light (Nicot, 1960) and ultravioletradiation (Durrell & Shields, 1960).

The authors express their sincere gratitude to Dr M. B. Elliss andMrs M. Tulloch of the C.M.!., Kew, England, for kindly checking theidentification of the species recorded in this paper.

REFERENCES

BESADA, W. H. & YUSUF, H. M. (1968). Some Deuteromycetes as new records ofUARmycoflora. Proceedings of the Egyptian Acadenry of Science lU, 91-100.

COMBER, N. M. (1960). An Introduction to the scientific study of the soil. London: EdwardArnold Publishers.

DURRELL, L. W. & SHIELDS, L. M. (1960). Fungi isolated in culture from soils of theNevada Test Site. Mycologia 52,636-641.

JOHNSON, L. F., CURL, E. A., BOND,j. H. & FRIBOURG, H. A. (1959). Methods forstudying soil microflora-plant disease relationships. Minneapolis Publishing Co.

MENZIES, j. D. (1957). A dipper technique for serial dilutions of soil for microbialanalysis. Proceedings Soil Science Society of America 21, 660.

MOUBASHER, A. H. & MOUSTAFA, A. F. (1970). A survey of Egyptian soil fungi withspecial reference to Aspergillus, Penicillium and Penicillium-related genera. Transac­tionsof the British Mycological Society 54, 35-44·

N1COT, j. (1960). Some characteristics of the microflora in desert sands. The ecology ofsoilfungi (eds D. Parkinson &j. S. Waid) , pp. 94-97. Liverpool: Liverpool Univer­sity Press.

RANZON1, F. V. (1968). Fungi isolated in culture from soils of the Sonoran Desert.Mycologia 60, 356-371.

SABET, Y. S. (1935). A preliminary study of the Egyptian soil fungi. Bulletin of theFacultyof Science, Egyptian University 5, 1-29.

SMITH, N. R. & DAWSON, V. T. (1944). The bacteriostatic action of rose bengal inmedia used for the plate counts of soil fungi. Soil Science 58,467-471.

Trans. Br. mycol. Soc. 59 (3), (1972). Printed in Great Britain