Eupenicillium saturniforme, a new species discovered from Northeast China.

A new Eupenicillium species, E. saturniforme was isolated from soil in Jilin Province, northeast China. Morphologically, it resembled E. shearii and E. tropicum, but is distinguished from them by slowly maturing cleistothecia, lenticular ascospores with nearly smooth-walled convex surfaces, strictly velutinous colony texture with abundant conidiogenesis, robust biverticillate penicilli, apically vesiculate metulae and rough-walled stipes and conidia. The partial beta-tubulin gene sequence of the new species (EU644080) showed relationship with Penicillium glabrum in the BLAST search in GenBank. Further analyses of partial calmodulin and ribosomal DNA internally transcribed spacer 1-5.8S-internally transcribed spacer 2 (rDNA ITS1-5.8S-ITS2) sequence data confirmed that E. saturniforme fell in the clade with P. glabrum, P. lividum, P. purpurascens, P. spinulosum and P. thomii of Subgenus Aspergilloides. However, E. saturniforme is a distinctive species lacking close relatives among described species of penicillia.