NAME Leptosphaerites
AGE    AGE span:  mya
K&J CLASSIFICATION (2000) Ascomycetes, Dothidiales.
FIGURE(S)
FIGURE REFERENCE
SPECIES, AUTHORITY Leptosphaerites Richon 1886, p. 9.
LOCATION
ORIG DESCRIPTION* ORIGINAL DIAGNOSIS: [combined description] Ascophorous fungus: with simple, black, smooth, somewhat shiny, scattered, semi-emergent, hemispherical perithecia, provided with a heavy, perforated ostiole; centre yellow-brown; asci or paraphyses not observed; spores dark, fusiform, curved, triseptate, the penultimate cell protruding, 25 µm long.

Spermogonoid fungus: with spermogonia, in size and shape like the perithecia, enclosing minute, simple spermatia that are aligned in allantoid manner in chains.

This species occurs on stalks or leaves of some fossil monocotyledonous plant [found] in samples of shaly lignite collected by Dr. Lemoine, to whom I dedicate this species.
COMMENTS*
PUBLICATION REFERENCE Richon C. 1886. Notice sur quelques sphériacées nouvelles; Bulletin de la Société Botanique de France, v. 32, p. 8-12.
K&J REMARKS The author of the genus Leptosphaerites is Richon (1886), and not Vincenzo de Cesati & Guiseppe de Notaris 1863, as given by Felix; the latter are the authors of the extant genus Leptosphaeria.

The fossil genus Leptosphaerites was described by Richon (1886) as containing both perithecia (ascocarps) and spermatia (microconidia), but the fusiform, curved, 3-septate ascospores were better represented than the minute spermatia. Kalgutkar and Jansonius (2000) classify this species under Ascomycetes.

Richon wrote the diagnosis in Latin, but provided a discussion in French, from which the following citations are relevant: The rock specimen from which L. lemoinii was derived are from lignitic clays overlying a lacustrine limestone in the region of Reims, France, which had yielded perfectly preserved plant fossils. Its age was not further specified (Kalgutkar and Jansonius (2000) assume it may be Tertiary).

The fructifications reminded Richon of Hypoxylon multiforme, or a Leptosphaeria, of the Sphaeriaceae.

Repeated microscopic observations on perithecia crushed in a drop of water always showed perfectly preserved ascospores, some dark, some nearly transparent. However, after crushing one more perithecium, its contents seemed to Richon to have a different color, and he was surprised to find, under 700x magnification, a mass of colorless, cylindrical, very short spermatia, some free, some strung together as in a rosary, about 2.2 µm in size. Richon concluded that he dealt with a spermagonium, the external shape of which closely resembled the perithecia he had studied previously. No hyphae were preserved.

Richon did not designate a type specimen, but described the aggregate of material together.
TYPE TYPE: Leptosphaerites lemoinii Richon 1886, p. 9. pl. 10, fig. 4 [lectotype, selected by Jansonius & Hills (1976), card no. 1480].
ALL NAMES (Including synonyms) Leptosphaerites;
SERIAL NUMBER 889
PUBLIC COMMENTS
 *For source, see Publication Reference.