Basionym: Cordyceps brunneipunctata Hywel-Jones [as ‘brunneapunctata’], Mycol. Res. 99: 1195 (1995)

Anamorph state: Hirsutella sp.

Specimens were found buried in forest soils or fallen trunks and rotting logs. Hosts were elaterid beetle larvae (Coleoptera, Elateridae). The fungus produced reddish-purple or cinnamon to brown stromas on one end of the insect larva, mostly erect. Stroma usually solitary, rarely up to 3, simple, 25-90 mm high. The stipe was simple, cylindric, 5-15 mm x 1-1.8 mm, depending on the size of the beetle larva. The fertile head was distinctly subterminal with anamorph state at apex. The ascomas were immersed, perithecioid, brown, ovate to pyriform, brown-walled, 270-335 µm high, 110-160 µm across. Asci hyaline, cylindric, capitate, 8-spored, 280-295 µm x 6-7 µm. Ascospores hyaline, filiform, multiseptate breaking into 64 part-spores, cylindric and truncated at the ends, 4-6 µm x 1-1.5 µm. In culture the colonies on PDA are slow growing, attaining a diameter of 1-2 cm in 14 d at 25°C. Colonies at first white changing to cinnamon brown with age. Colonies readily produced a mononematous Hirsutella anamorph on hyaline hyphae after 3-4 wks. Cinnamon brown synnemata arise with a pruinose white to cream area bearing conidiogenous cells and conidia after 10-12 wks. The fungus is regularly found in Khao Yai National Park but collections have also been made throughout the country.

Hywel-Jones, N.L. (1995). Cordyceps brunneapunctata sp. nov. infecting beetle larvae in Thailand. Mycological Research 99: 1195-1198. 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.