Botryotrichum piluliferum

Botryotrichum piluliferum is found worldwide. It has been isolated and recorded in many countries such as Canada, the United States, The Netherlands, and South Africa. It has been found on deer and goat dung in Denmark and field mouse dung in England. The fungus is rarely found in soils, however, it can be found at depths of 80 cm below soil. It has been reported in mountainous regions, salt marshes, and cedar forests. It has also been isolated from stems of Urtica dioica, hay, rhizospheres of groundnut, rice and wheat, paper products, and mouldy textiles, as well as in the seeds of chili pepper. B. piluliferum is a food source for Pygmephorus mesembrinae and P. quadratus. When in vitro, it can be parasitized by Pythium oligandrum.

== References ==

Botryotrichum piluliferum was first described in Belgium from rabbit dung. The anamorph was discovered by Pier Andrea Saccardo and Marchal in 1885. The teleomorph, Chaetomium piluliferum was named by J. Daniels in 1961 from a culture of B. piluliferum on cellulose film. The culture produced underdeveloped perithecia typical of those seen in the genus Chaetomium but was not connected to any known species at the time. The culture also produced phialospores and dark hyphae that were characteristic of B. piluliferum. Daniels described this as the teleomorph of B. piluliferum and named it C. piluliferum. A dried type specimen of the teleomorph was studied and found to be similar to C. murorum, a species described by Corda in 1837. This fungus contained narrower ascospores, longer hairs of ascomata, and was absent of aleurioconidia and an anamorph. The conidiophores of C. piluliferum resemble that of C. piluliferoides which was discovered by Udagawa and Horie in 1975. C. piluliferoides produces aleurioconidia 5–7.5 μm in diameter and ascomata that are 200–240 x 120–145 μm containing short terminal hairs of 200–250 μm and spindle-shaped ascospores. Hawksworth stated that understanding C. piluliferum could not be done using only the anamorph and expressed the need for further research on the Botryotrichum states which occur in three Farrowia and eight other Chaetomium species. C. …