Notes: Whereas all specimens listed above under D. childiae, regardless of their geographic provenance, showed the same ascospore size range and those that we were able to culture had an anamorph with a nodulisporium-like branching pattern similar to that described by Rogers et al. (1999), deviations were observed in some specimens from the Southern Hemisphere and the HawaiianIslands. These specimens have larger ascospores, while otherwise being more or less in agreement with D. childiae from the Northern Hemisphere and the Tropics. The anamorph approached a virgariella-like branching pattern (Fig. 44H) and the more complex nodulisporium-like type was not observed. Therefore, a new taxon is erected to accommodate them.

Notes: [D. dennisii] typified, based on material from Australia, but it seems to be widely distributed in New Zealand as well. We assume that a great percentage of specimens previously reported as D. concentrica from this geographic region will turn out to correspond to D. dennisii var. dennisii, once a critical revision of the material has been carried ou

Known distribution/host preference of stromata: Southern Hemisphere, in particular Australia and New Zealand, but also occurring in Polynesia and South Africa. On various dicot hosts (with a single record from a monocot plant), without apparent host specificity. Teleomorph like the typical variety except for having smaller ascospores (12–15 × 6–8 µm) and smaller ascal apical apparati (0.5–0.75 × 3.5–4 µm). Anamorph like the typical variety.

Teleomorph: This species differs from D. grandis in having white, rather than light brown lighter internal concentric zones, which often become loculate as in D. vernicosa. In addition, it has more regular, equilateral, almost ovoid ascospores, which are as variable in size as those of D. grandis (14–)16–23 × 8–13(–14) µm. Notes: This species was previously included in the concept of D. grandis by Child (1932) and Ju et al. (1997) based on the rather large ascospores. More recently, a different ascospore morphology was noted, and even its stromatal anatomy shows consistent deviations from D. grandis (Stadler et al. 2004c). Daldinia novaezelandiae rather appears related to D. bakeri and D. vernicosa and differs from other large–spored members of the genus in producing a virgariella–like anamorph. Stadler et al. (2004c) reported on the great variability in ascospore size ranges in different collections from New Zealand, which were only slightly overlapping in some cases. They attributed this phenomenon to the presence of a species complex that could eventually be further resolved by using complementary methods.