Octospora Hedw . , A New Genus Record for Turkish Pyronemataceae

The genus Octospora Hedw. is given as new record for the macromycota of Turkey, based on the collection and identification of the taxon Octospora itzerottii Benkert. Brief description of macroscopic and microscopic characters and photographs related to macro and micro morphology of the taxon are provided.


Introduction
Octospora Hedw is a genus of operculate ascomycetes within the order Pezizales and the family Pyronemataceae Corda.The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution and comprises 84 species (Kirk et al., 2008).The members of the genus are characterized by moss associated apothecia and ellipsoid to globose or rounded, sometimes ornamented, guttulate spores.The hyphal structure of the margin of apothecia is another distinguishing character of the members of the genus (Yao and Spooner, 1996).Itzerott reports (1977) that the members of Octospora are relatively common in western Europe.Eighty one octosporoid fungi were reported to exist in Europe (Benkert, 2007).But current checklists (Sesli and Denchev, 2014;Solak et al., 2015) and the studies published after the preparation of the checklists (Akata et al., 2016;Denğiz and Demirel, 2016;Sesli et al., 2016;Taşkın et al., 2016;Uzun and Acar, 2016;Uzun et al., 2017) indicate that any member of the genus Octospora have so far been reported from Turkey.
The work aims to make a contribution to the mycobiota of Turkey by adding a new ascomycete taxa.

Materials and Method
Octospora samples were collected from Nurdağı district of Gaziantep Province in 2015.Ecological and morphological characteristics of the samples were recorded and they were photographed in their natural habitat.Then the samples were brought to the fungarium, dried in air conditioned room and prepared as fungarium materials in polyethylene bags.Micromorphological investigations were carried out under a Nikon eclipse Ci trinocular light microscope and a DS-Fi2 digital camera and a Nikon DS-L3 displaying apparatus were used for microstructural photographing.The samples were identified mainly with the help of Benkert (1998Benkert ( , 2007Benkert ( , 2009)).They are kept at Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey University, Science Faculty, Department of Biology.

Results
The systematics of the taxon is given in accordance with Kirk et al. (2008), and the Index Fungorum (www.indexfungorum.org;accessed 31 July 2017).A brief description, habitat, locality, collection date, and accession number of the taxon are provided.

Discussions
Generally the members of the genera Inermisia, Lamprospora, Neottiella and Octospora within the family Pyronemataceae have tiny, disc-shaped apothecia coloured in shades of orange to red.Due to their small size morphological similarities, they can easily be overlooked and it is very hard to separate their species from each other (Itzerott, 1977).
The current checklists (Sesli and Denchev, 2014;Solak et al., 2015) compiled 34 pyronematous macrofungi existing in Turkey.After the latest versions of the checklists 28 members of Pyronemataceae have also been added to these lists and the total taxa number reached to 62 (Keleş et al., 2014;Türkoğlu and Castellano, 2014;Demirel et al., 2015;Karacan et al., 2015;Kaya and Uzun, 2015;Kaya et al., 2016;Kaya, 2016).As a result of this study, the number of pyromenatoid species known from Turkey has increased from 62 to 63.