XVI International Botanical Congess

The pyrenomycetous genus Chaetosphaeria demonstrates a very interesting taxonomic problem, where the classical morphological characters of perithecia, ascospores, asci and hamathecia are not sufficient for correct identification of the teleomorph species. These characters are very uniform and the species diversity can be mostly determined by means of the morphological characters of the 10 associated anamorph genera producing enteroblastic-phialidic conidia. Culture studies are essential and irreplaceable in the systematics of Chaetosphaeria and can fully answer the questions about the whole life-history. Molecular studies based on sequence data of the nuclear large-subunit rDNA, particularly of the ITS regions, are important for solving the problems of the circumscription and phylogenetic relationships of the taxa in Chaetosphaeria and its segregates.