The genus Zygosporium contains asexual, largely saprotrophic, Ascomycete Fungi distinguished by dark brown setiform conidiophores (bristle-shaped spore producing bodies) with darkly pigmented, incurved, and swollen vesicles, often stacked, emerging either from the side of the conidiophore or from the mycelium (network of fungal threads).There are 22 described living species within the group, as well as three known fossil species, two from the Siwalik sediments of the eastern Himalayas, and one from the Oligocene of Hungary.
In a paper published in the journal Fungal Biology on 12 March 2023, Sampa Kundu and Mahasin Ali Khan of the Palaeobotany and Palynology Laboratory at the Department of Botany at Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, describe a new species of Zygosporium from the Late Miocene Middle Siwalik of Himachal Pradesh, in the western Himalayas.
The new species is named Zygosporium himachalensis, where 'himachalensis' means 'from Himachal'. It is based upon a series of specimens found growing on a compressed Monocot leaf recovered from a grey mudstone in the Middle Siwalik in Mandi District of Himachal Pradesh. This location is about 8-10 km from, and probably coeval with Nalad Khad Section, which has been dated to 12-8 million years before the present.
Specimens of Zygosporium himachalensis have erect, usually unbranched conidiophores, with chains of up to 4 integrated alternatively or suboppositely arranged vesicles arising directly from the mycelium. These are arranged in effuse or sometimes compact irregular-shaped patches on the surface of the leaf.
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