The LTER/DCE group (Moran, Buchan, Lyons, Newell) has discovered that there is an undescribed ascomycete that is a previously unrecognized important component of the decomposer community of the attached decaying leaves of smooth cordgrass. It appears, from both ascospore-capture analysis and PCR/T-RFLP (rDNA/ITS), that this ascomycete increases in importance as the leaves move into the "collapsed-on-sediment" stage, following a period of decay in a position standing above the sediment. It makes tiny brown ascomata (about 80 µm wide near the base, and 160 µm tall) with white-tipped necks that often protrude from the clay layer adherent to older decaying blades. Our nickname for the species is '4clt' (probably the same as J & B Kohlmeyer's "Asco7"). The ascospores of '4clt' are hyaline and 4- celled (about 23 x 7 µm; two are shown in the image, at lower left; just above them is an ascospore of Mycosphaerella sp.2, and at upper right are two ascospores of Phaeosphaeria halima, one of which has begun to germinate). See Newell & Porter, 2000, pp. 159-185, in Weinstein & Kreeger, Concepts and Controversies in Tidal Marsh Ecology, Kluwer; Newell, 2001, Limnology & Oceanography 46:573-583.