Samson (1979) considered Emericella nivea distinct from the other
Emericella species by the hyaline to pale yellow ascospores and the
anamorph belonging to the A. flavipes group. The species is similar
to Fennellia flavipes Wiley & Simmons and could be classified
as the second species of Fennellia. However our phylogenetic
analysis and those by Peterson (2008) and Peterson et al. (2008)
showed that the isolates of Emericella nivea clustered separately
from the isolates of Aspergillus niveus and hence it represents a
different taxon. Following the need for an orderly transitition to a
single-name nomenclatural system (Hawksworth et al. 2011) we
have chosen to name this species in Aspergillus and not in its
teleomorph genus, Fennellia.