Apologies for repeated posting, there was something not working well with the forum. I have deleted the repeated posts. My email is info @ maltawildplants.com.

I did a bit of research and had the pleaseure to discuss this with Martin and I am convinced that this is the same Xyaria being reported on fallen and decaying fallen fruit on Olea europaea which many authers are ascribing to Xylaria putaminum.

I have considered this taxon but about 2 yrs ago I was told that this taxon is invalid. Now, with 2-3 recent publications accepting this species , I am not sure why/if it is really invalid. If  X. putaminum/putamina is really invalid, then we are truly with an 'undescribed species'


Recent literature referring to X. putaminum:


Sanches Iglesias (2016) - XYLARIA PUTAMINUM (ASCOMYCOTA, XYLARIACEAE) EN
SEVILLA, SUROESTE DE LA PENÍNSULA IBÉRICA.

La Rosa et al. (2022) - XYLARIA PUTAMINUM (XYLARIACEAE, ASCOMYCOTA), A RARE MEDITERRANEAN SPECIES: FIRST RECORD IN ITALY

Friebes et al. (2024) - Xylaria rohrensis, a new species inhabiting nutshells of
Juglans regia in Austria (see discusion on X. putaminum from a sample on olive fruit vouchered by Fournier from Spain)

Interesting is the similarity with X. palmicola in all papers (op. cit.)


Your opinions are welcome while I am provisionally ascribing my two collections  from Malta as X. putminum

FASTA files available to who wish to analyse the molecular result (ITS and LSU).

Hello, some more puzzle pieces: 

Maire & Duvernoy presented this Xylaria as a new species on the society's session 6.3.1920, noting the difficulty of finding mature spores despite numerous collections made so far. https://bibdigital.rjb.csic.es/viewer/11119/?offset=#page=38&viewer=picture&o=ocr&n=0&q=olea

The schedae (and notes?) are online on JSTOR, but I don't have the access there: 
Maire's 1920 coll.: https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.mpuc04535
Bertault's 1961 coll.: https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.mpub02733

I wonder why "Maire & Durieu". Durieu passed away the same year Maire was born (1878). A later algerian coll. by Maire is labelled only "X. putaminum Maire" : https://www.mycoportal.org/portal/collections/individual/index.php?occid=4846466&clid=0

Best regards,
Viktorie

Dear all,
Thanks for you contributions. Seeing that it boils down to these old collections stored on Jstor, I will try to get access to them in the coming days. I have an account with them but still they dont allow me to download the sheets so I had just contacted them.

Will keep you posted
S.

I have acquired these protologoues from JSTOR, hence if someone is interested I can send them for free.