Pochonia chlamydosporia, formerly Verticillium chlamydosporium, is a soil mould that lives around and inside plant roots and infects the eggs of root-knot and cyst nematodes. By destroying eggs in egg masses and cysts, it lowers nematode numbers in soil for later crops, and it is studied as an alternative to chemical nematicides. Thick-walled, many-celled resting spores let it survive in soil for long periods.
Not edible; a microscopic soil mould with no food use.
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Soil and the rhizosphere, also as a root endophyte; tolerates very low water potentials. Isolated from garden soil (type, Michigan), forest soil, egg masses of the giant African land snail (Sri Lanka) and cicada nymphs, on which its sexual morph has been found in Thailand.
Distribution
Recorded from the USA (type locality, Ann Arbor, Michigan), Canada, Germany, Japan, Thailand and Sri Lanka; the sources consulted do not give a full range.
Characteristics
Colonies white to ochre-yellow, cottony, 15-40 mm across in 10 days. Conidiophores prostrate to erect, unbranched, 12-30 x 1-1.5 µm, often hard to tell from the mycelium. Phialides 3-7 x 1-4 µm, ellipsoid to subcylindrical. Conidia 2.5-5.5 x 1.5-4 µm, globose to ovoid, smooth, hyaline, one-celled. Dictyochlamydospores: multicellular, thick-walled resting spores. Infects nematode eggs within egg masses or cysts.
