Doratomyces columnaris sp. Nov.

In the course of a routine investigation of fungi growing on dung pellets of hares collected in the Melville Koppies Nature Reserve in Johannesburg some rather small coremia were noticed. Slides were prepared and an attempt made to isolate the organism in pure culture was successful. The structure of the coremium appeared to be the same as in the genera Doratomyces (Morton and Smith, 1963) and Trichurus (Swart, 1964), and in addition the conidia were seen to occur in chains on annellophores. No setae were present and therefore the organism was classified as a species of Doratomyces, however it did not fit the description of any of the species as summarised by Morton and Smith (1963), for this reason the organism is described here as a new species. The description is based on the study of the original material and of material from cultures on oatmeal decoction agar and oatmeal-dung extract agar.