A new dematiaceous hyphomycete, Elegantimyces sporidesmiopsis gen. et sp. nov., is described from decaying wood submerged in a stream in Hong Kong. It produces predominantly 3-septate, obclavate, versicoloured, solitary conidia at the apex of the sympodially regenerating conidiophores. The apical cell of the conidia is unique in becoming a sympodially proliferating conidiogenous cell producing an Idriella-like synanamorph. Conidial secession in this fungus is rhexolytic. Elegantimyces is compared with Sporidesmium bifasciatum, S. tropicale and S. urceolatum which also produce Idriella-like synanamorphs.

The effect of increasing culture age on cell surface hydrophobicity (CSH) and cell surface electrostatic charge (measured as zeta potential) of conidia from five isolates of Coniothyrium minitans representing three different morphological types was examined. Conidial CSH of three isolates (A2 960/1, CH1 and CH2) decreased with culture age, whereas CSH of two others (B 1300/2 and IMI 134523) remained high for the whole 42 day experimental period. In contrast, cell surface electrostatic charge decreased uniformly in conidia of all five isolates for the first 34 d and then rose slightly at 42 d. The variation in cell surface electrostatic charge (spectrum width) of the sampled conidia decreased with age for all five isolates. In all five isolates cell surface electrostatic charge of conidia became increasingly negative as the pH of the buffer used to suspend conidia was increased from pH 3·0 to 9·0. No relationship between colony morphology of C. minitans and conidial CSH and cell surface electrostatic charge was found.

Beauveria spp. from New Zealand were compared with isolates from other countries using morphological and genetic methods. The New Zealand isolates could be divided into B. bassiana and B. brongniartii based on conidial dimensions; isolates with conidia longer than 3 μM were classified as B. brongniartii, isolates with shorter, spherical conidia were B. bassiana. RAPD analyses using 10 random primers and scoring 330 bands divided isolates into four large groups: a heterogeneous B. bassiana/B. brongniartii group from New Zealand and other countries, a group containing only New Zealand B. bassiana, a group of only B. brongniartii from both New Zealand and overseas, and a group of other Beauveria species (B. velata, B. caledonica, B. amorpha and B. vermiconia). Restriction digestion of the internal transcribed spacer regions of the nuclear rDNA supported the existence of a genetically distinct New Zealand group of B. bassiana isolates, separating these from a heterogeneous group of B. bassiana and B. brongniartii.