Anamorph state: Polycephalomyces sp.

Neuroptera nymphs, up to 25 mm long. The fungus produces reddish brown stromata when fresh, erect, mostly branched, up to 40 mm long and 300-500 m in diam. with orange brown perithecial plates, some terminal, with many subterminal plates. Perithecia, narrowly ovoid to conoid, within a loose hyphal network making a cushion surrounding the perithecial plates, perpendicular to the stroma, 580-720 x 200-250 m. Asci cylindrical, almost as long as the perithecia, ascus tip 3-3.5 m. Ascospores filiform, multiseptate but looks like whole ascospores when discharged, readily breaks into 128 fragments, 2.5-5 x 0.8-1 m. Colonies on PDA slow-growing, attaining a diam. of 3-4 cm in 14 d at 25๐C. Colonies at first floccose with white mycelium, with age producing patches of slimy cream-yellow conidia. Cordyceps nipponica is commonly found in the eastern part of Thailand especially near the Cambodian border but collections have also been made throughout Thailand. Kobayasi (1939) identified the anamorph as Isaria nipponica. No anamorph was seen in nature. However, in culture this is clearly allied to Polycephalomyces.

Kobayasi, Y. (1939). On the genus Cordyceps and its allies on cicadae from Japan. Bull. Biogeogr. Soc. Japan 9: 145-176. Sung, G.-H., Hywel-Jones, N.L., Sung, J.-M., Luangsa-ard, J.J., Shrestha, B. & Spatafora, J.W. (2007). Phylogenetic classification of Cordyceps and the clavicipitaceous fungi. Studies in Mycology 57: 5-59.