Pleurotheciaceae

Sexual morph; Ascomata perithecial (flask shaped), immersed, semi-immersed (in water) 2 or superficial, papillate or with a central rarely eccentric neck. The ostiole is periphysate (having short, thread-like filaments that line the opening). The peridium is leather-like or fragile, carbonaceous and consisting of two layers. The outer layer is composed of brown to dark brown cells and the inner layer of hyaline (translucent) to pale brown cells. The paraphyses (basally-attached hypha) are abundant, sparsely branched, partially disintegrating and cylindrical in shape. The asci are 8-spored, unitunicate (single-walled), cylindrical or cylindrical-clavate (club-shaped). With short or long pedicellate (having small or slender stalks), with a pronounced J−, apical ring. The ascospores are overlapping or 1–3-seriate (arranged in rows). They are hyaline or versicolorous with polar cells hyaline and the middle cells are brown, ellipsoidal to fusiform (spindle-shaped) and transversely multi-septate. They are lacking a mucilaginous (sticky or viscous when wet) sheath or appendages. Asexual morph: The conidiomata (thin-walled, asexual spores) are present or absent, when present indeterminate synnemata (bundled or fused together) or loose fascicles. Conidiophores macronematous (having morphologically different conidiophore) or semi-macronematous, sometimes elongating percurrently. The conidiogenous cells are holoblastic (cleaved or separated), conidial secession rhexolytic on short denticles or rachis on sympodially extending polyblastic conidiogenous cells, or schizolytic on monoblastic or solitary thallic conidiogenous cells. The conidia are hyaline, sometimes with protracted maturation of the middle cells, which turn brown, or brown or versicolorous, septate or aseptate. ==History==

The family of Pleurotheciaceae was introduced by Réblová et al. (2016c) in the Pleurotheciales order. however, only three of them, P. garethjonesii, P. glanduliformis and P. stemphylioides, have molecular data available. Su et al. (2015) introduced P. garethjonesii based on DNA sequence data and morphology and placed this species in Melanommataceae in Dothideomycetes. A multi-locus phylogenetic analyses based on a combined ITS, LSU, SSU and rpb2 sequence data of Pleurotheciales was presented. Bayesian inference, maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood were used for phylogenetic analyses. The analyses provided similar tree topologies, which are similar with those in Réblová et al. (2016c), Yang et al. (2016b), Hernández-Restrepo et al. (2017), Hyde et al. (2017b, 2018b,) and Luo et al. (2018). The problematic genera and species and the newly introduced genus after Réblová et al. (2016c), Phragmocephala stemphylioides (DAOM 673211), Brachysporiella setosa (HKUCC 3713) (current name: Monotosporella setosa), Anapleurothecium botulisporum (FMR 11490), Taeniolella rudis (DAOM 229838) (current name: Sterigmatobotrys rudis), Helicoon farinosum (current name: Helicoascotaiwania hughesii) (ILLS 53605 and DAOM 241947), are grouped in a robust clade Pleurotheciaceae. ==Genera==

In early 2020, the family contained Adelosphaeria (1), Anapleurothecium (1), Helgardiomyces (1), Helicoön (28), Melanotrigonum (1), Monotosporella (4), Neomonodictys (1), Phaeoisaria (23), Phragmocephala (15), Pleurotheciella (11), Pleurothecium (11), Rhynchobrunnera (2), Saprodesmium (1) and Sterigmatobotrys (6). Containing 106 species. As of 2020 it contained the following genera; Adelosphaeria (1 species), Anapleurothecium (3 sp.), Helicoascotaiwania (3 sp.), Melanotrigonum (1 species), Neomonodictys (2 sp.), Phaeoisaria (25 sp.), Pleurotheciella (15 sp.), Pleurothecium (12 sp.) and Sterigmatobotrys (4 sp.), with up to 66 known species. In 2022, Phaeoisarialaianensis a new species that was found in freshwater habitats in China, was added to the Pleurotheciaceae family. In 2023, Rhexoacrodictys melanospora was found in China. Genus Rhexoacrodictys was introduced by Baker et al. (2002) to accommodate Rhexoacrodictys erecta . ==Distribution==

It has a scattered cosmopolitan distribution. It is found in parts of Southern Europe,