Leotiomycetes

Leotiomycetes are a class of ascomycete fungi. Many of them cause serious plant diseases.

Systematics
The class Leotiomycetes contains numerous species with an anamorph placed within the fungi imperfecti (deuteromycota), that have only recently found their place in the phylogenetic system. The older classifications placed Leotiomycetes into the Discomycetes clade (inoperculate Discomycetes). Molecular studies have recently shed some new light to the still obscure systematics. Most scholars consider Leotiomycetes a sister taxon to Sordariomycetes in the phylogenetic tree of Pezizomycotina. Its division into subclasses have received strong support by the molecular data, but the overall monophyly of Leotiomycetes is dubious.

Characteristics

 * Most Leotiomycetes grow their asci in apothecia (seldom cleistothecia). The asci are cylindrical, without operculum.


 * The spores are hyaline, of various shapes, and are released through an apical circular pore.