*4.1.2. Asci*

The morphology of asci is particularly of two major types, unitunicate and bitunicate (**Figure 6**). Asci are produced within the ascomata and act as platforms from which the spores are launched. However, some asci release the ascospores passively by dissolving the ascal wall at maturity, rather than active spore-shooting mechanism. Asci usually bear eight ascospores, though sometimes with four or six, and occasionally producing multiple numbers of ascospores.

#### *4.1.3. Ascospores.*

The ascospores of bambusicolous fungi exhibit a variety of shapes (**Figure 7**). The common shapes are ellipsoidal, fusiform, filiform, and so on. The color of ascospores can be hyaline, pale brown, brown to dark brown. The ascospores usually are single-celled or have one to two septa and sometimes multiseptate, like muriform spores. Their surfaces are smooth, striate to verrucose, or covered by a sheath.

[16, 45]. The major morphologic characters are conidiomata, conidiophores, and conidiogenous cells. In the coelomycetous fungi, the conidia develop in a growing cavity, called conidiomata which can be acervuli, pycnidia, or sporodochium-like structures [64]. For hyphomycetous fungi, a conidium develops directly on the conidiophores which may be mononematous or synnematous and bear a single or more conidiogenous cells which usually are holoblastic, enteroblastic, phialidic, annelidic, or tretic. Conidium ontogeny has long been used as an

**Figure 5.** Various types of ascomata on bamboo. a–g, l: superficial ascomata; h–j: erupted ascomata; k: immersed ascomata; a–c, e, h: perithecia; d: stromata; f, g: flatten ascostromata; i: multiloculate stroma; j: conical stromatic ascomata;

A Review of Bambusicolous Ascomycetes http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76463 171

k: stromata; l: *xylarioid* stromata.
