‘Jishouense’ referring to Jishou City, site of collection of type species.

Endophytic fungus in root of Nothapodytespittosporoides. Sexual morph: Undetermined. Asexual morph: Vegetative hyphae 0.5–1.2 µm diam. (n=10), hyaline, smooth-walled, septate, branched. Chlamydospores not observed. Conidiophores formed on a basal cushion, hyaline to pale brown, clavate or cylindrical, septate and irregularly branched. Conidiogenous cells 4–11 × 2–3 μm (x‒= 6.7 ± 3.0 × 2.6 ± 0.4 μm, n=20), L/W ratio= 2.5, hyaline, smooth-walled, clavate to mostly ampulliform or cylindrical. Conidia hyaline, smooth-walled, aseptate, straight, cylindrical, some clavate, the apex and base rounded, 5–14 × 3–5 μm (x‒ = 10.8 ± 1.8 × 3.7 ± 0.5 μm, n = 40), L/W ratio= 2.9. Appressoria not observed.

Colonies on PDA, reaching 55–60 mm diam. in 14 days at 25 °C in darkness, circular, mycelium superficial and partially immersed, more or less planar, brown in the medium but covered with abundant, pale and lanose to cottony aerial mycelium, reverse greenish pale brown, margin entire and irregular.

CHINA, Hunan Province, Jishou City (28°55'24"N, 109°10'24"E), isolated from healthy roots of Nothapodytespittosporoides, 27 May 2016, S.X. Zhou (Holotype GACP GZU_HJ2_G3 dried culture), ex-type living culture, GMBC0209, living culture, GZU_HJ2_G2, living culture, GZU_HJ2_G4.

China, Hunan Province, Jishou City (28°55'24"N, 109°10'24"E), isolated from healthy stem of Nothapodytespittosporoides, 27 May 2016, S.X. Zhou, living culture, GZU_HJ3_J5.

Colletotrichumjishouense belongs in the gigasporum species complex. C.jishouense has shorter and narrower conidiogenous cells and conidia than all the related species in the C.gigasporum complex (Liu et al. 2014). Phylogenetically, our four new isolates clustered together with C.magnisporum (CBS 398.84). The pairwise dissimilarities of DNA sequences between C.jishouense and C.magnisporum were 2 bp, 20 bp, 5 bp and 9 bp in ITS, TUB2, ACT and GAPDH, respectively. They are phylogenetically distinct species and, therefore, C.jishouense sp. nov. is introduced.