**1. Introduction**

Bamboo, as the largest member of the grass family *Poaceae*, plays an important role in local economies throughout the world. They are used in furniture and construction, or as food for human and animals like panda. Bamboo is even used in Chinese traditional medicine for treating infections and healing of wounds [1]. Bamboo species is distributed in diverse climates, from cold mountain areas to hot tropical regions. They have very little natural toxicity and, therefore are easily prone to fungi and insect attacks [2]. It is reported that more than 1100 species of fungi have so far been described or recorded from bamboo host worldwide [3]. These include ca. 630 ascomycetes, 150 basidiomycetes, and 330 asexual morph taxa (100 coelomycetous and 230 hyphomycetous species) [3]. Bamboo fungi are important to agricultural and economic development, such as *Phallus indusiatus* Vent., which is the delicious edible

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

mushroom and usually called as "bamboo pith." It has been cultivated worldwide and brings a high economic income. Some of bamboo fungi, however, are pathogens, most of which are ascomycetes. In this chapter, a review of bamboo ascomycetes is provided herein.

in photodynamic therapy (PDT) [10] and in anticancer treatments [11]. Another well-known Chinese medicinal ascomycete is *Hypocrella bambusae* (Berk. & Broome) Sacc. This fungus produces similar ascostromata with *S. bambusicola* on branches of *Sinarundinaria* spp. Their ascostromata are also used to extract hypocrellin A and hypocrellin B. It is reported that hypocrellin B can be used to evaluate antiviral activity against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) [12]. In China, a costly medicinal unguent named Bamboo Parasitic Fungus Ointment is made of hypocrellin B. *H. bambusae* contains higher hypocrellin than that of *S. bambusicola*. Index Fungorum [13] recorded that the current name of this fungus is *Pseudonectria bambusae* (Berk. & Broome) Höhn. Without the full morphological study and molecular data in GenBank, its taxonomic placement still remains confused. Therefore, the study of taxonomy and phylogeny of bamboo fungi is urgently needed to be carried out to clarify these undetermined and

A Review of Bambusicolous Ascomycetes http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76463 167

The term "fungorum bambusicolorum" (bambusicolous fungi), was first used by Iwao Hino [14], though the author did not give a definition. "Bambusicolous" means "living on bamboo" [3]. Kevin D. Hyde and colleagues in 2002 defined bambusicolous, which embodies fungi growing on any bamboo substrates, including leaves, culms, branches, sheathes, flowers, rhizomes, and roots [3]. Subsequently, the phrase "Bambusicolous fungi" has been widely used

Lembosia Léveillé is the first mycologist, who mentioned the presence of a fungus on bamboo. In 1845, he described *Roumegueria goudotii* (Lév.) Sacc. ex Clem. & Shear (Basionym: *Dothidea goudotii* Lev.) occurring on leaves of *Chusquea* sp. and *Sphaeria bambusae* Lev. collected from the culms of *Bambusa bambos* (L.) Voss, in Tolima, Columbia [17]. Later, this author introduced two new species *Asterina microscopica* Lev. and *S. hypoxantha* Lev. from the leaves of *Chusquea*

In 1854, Miles J. Berkeley recorded *Hypoxylon fuscopurpureum* (Schwein.) Berk. from *Phyllostachys* sp. and *Sasa* sp. [19]. The next year, Jean P.F.C. Montagne introduced a new species *S. fusariispora* Mont. on leaves of *Bambusa* sp. [20]. During 1871–1880, eight new ascomycetes were described from bamboo host, and between 1881 and 1920, the numbers got increased up to more than 100 species (**Figure 2**). However, the number of newly described species declined before and after the Second World War [3] (**Figure 2**). Nevertheless, during 1951–1990, publications of new species on bamboo got increased dramatically (**Figure 2**). Iwao Hino and Ken Katumoto made an earlier significant contribution on bambusicolous fungi during 1960–1970s, by recording 104 new species of ascomycetes [4, 21–29]. In 1961, Iwao Hino wrote *Icones fungorum bambusicolorum japonicorum*, and recorded 460 ascomycetous species worldwide, of which 175 species were from Japan [30]. In the following years, more records and checklists of fungi on bamboo were carried out by mycologists. Petrini Orlando and colleagues in 1989 mentioned 63 records from France [31]. Ove E. Eriksson and Yue Jinzhu published *Bambusicolous pyrenomycetes*, *an annotated checklist* and listed 587 ascomycetous taxa in

1998 [32]. A checklist for 104 species from China is provided in 1999 by [33].

confused taxa.

**3. Bamboo ascomycetes: history**

by mycologists worldwide [15, 16].

sp. and culms of *B. bambos*, respectively, in 1846 [18].
