In several endophyte studies published till now, isolates of wood-inhabiting basidiomycetes have been retrieved (culture-based as well as direct PCR) from leaves of herbaceous plants in habitats apart from woodlands. We know that wood fungi normally residing and fruiting in woody tissues have also been sometimes isolated from leaves of their tree plant host.., but what about herbs? What could wood fungi do inside herbs leaves in non-woody habitats?
HI Masoomeh,
Assuming a source of spores, perhaps wood inhabiting fungal spores just react to the presence of plant cell wall tissue and send hyphae into any plant cells they contact. Conditions within the leaf are not conducive to their growth, so perhaps they die, leaving DNA within the plant tissue--not affected by surface washing/sterilization procedures, or they live without growing, without doing any visible harm to the leaf.
Just speculating.
Matt
Hypothetical explanation to your question is linked to the source of endophytes in plants. Endophytes are possibly weak or repressed or attenuated parasites that either co-evolved with the plant or ecologically acquired in the course of growth and that have attained interactive equilibrium with the host. Plants were reported to engage relationship with fungi for better adaptation or survival through the environment. Therefore, spores of wood inhabiting fungi which like other fungi spores transiently or permanently form the complexity of soil microbiome have equal chance of being picked up via the mechanism of genetic drift as endophytes by herbaceous plants over the course of time. The may however be anamorphic in the endophytic state such plants rather than teleomorphic. Wish all the best.
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