This contribution of Mycological Research News features Pseudotulostoma: the find of the century?

This issue contains 15 original research papers. Fast-tracked is the description of a new and serious plant pathogen of Rhododendron and Viburnum, Phytophthora ramorum. Pistachio gummosis is found to be caused by two species of Phytophthora, one new to science. New molecular data confirm that the loculoascomycetes are not monophyletic, and show Chaetothyriomycetes to be a sister group of Eurotiomycetes, and that the Laboulbeniales warrant recognition as a separate ascomycete class (the Laboulbeniomycetes). Molecular studies on the hypogeous Arcangeliella borziana reveal a relationship to Lactarius sect. Russularia. A major study of Daldinia using a wide variety of biochemical and molecular methods is presented, and biometric studies on Pythium oospores demonstrate the efficacy of the approach in species separations.

The development of Sphaerotheca fusca on different melon cultivars is compared, Neotyphodium endophytes in grasses have been demonstrated inside vascular bundles for the first time, and the adhesion of conidia and germlings of Bipolaris sorokiana on solid surfaces investigated. In Agaricus bisporus the transcript levels of genes when stored is compared to that at harvest, and the behaviour of carbon-starved Penicillium chrysogenum cultures has been examined. The ability of citric and oxalic acids, and also culture filtrates of Aspergillus niger, to bind cobalt and zinc ions has been examined.

A remarkable new ascomycete discovered in Guyana, Pseudotulostoma volvata, resembles a gasteromycete, and a second species of Merimbla has been found in Mexico.

The following new scientific names are introduced: Pseudotulostoma gen. nov.; Merimbla humicoloides, Phytophthora pistaciae, P. ramorum, and Pseudotulostoma volvata spp. nov.