title: Geoglossomycetes cl. nov., Geoglossales ord. nov. and taxa above class rank in the Ascomycota Tree of Life.
abstract: Featuring a high level of taxon sampling across Ascomycota, we evaluate a multi-gene phylogeny and propose a novel order and class in Ascomycota. We describe two new taxa, Geoglossomycetes and Geoglossales, to host three earth tongue genera: Geoglossum, Trichoglossum and Sarcoleotia as a lineage of 'Leotiomyceta'. Correspondingly, we confirm that these genera are not closely related to the genera Neolecta, Mitrula, Cudonia, Microglossum, Thuemenidum, Spathularia and Bryoglossum, all of which have been previously placed within the Geoglossaceae. We also propose a non-hierarchical system for naming well-resolved nodes, such as 'Saccharomyceta', 'Dothideomyceta', and 'Sordariomyceta' for supraordinal nodes, within the current phylogeny, acting as rankless taxa. As part of this revision, the continued use of 'Leotiomyceta', now as a rankless taxon, is proposed.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Biological Information (GenBank), National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health, 45 Center Drive, MSC 6510, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-6510, USA;
authors.forename: C L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Schoch
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Townsend
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Spatafora