Lomentospora prolificans is an emerging opportunistic fungal pathogen that causes a wide variety of infections in immunologically normal and immunosuppressed people and animals.

[3] Drugs targeting the Class II dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) proteins of L. prolificans, Scedosporium, Aspergillus and other deadly moulds are the basis for at least one new therapy, Olorofim, which is currently in phase 2b clinical trials and has received breakthrough status by FDA.

[5] The fungus, which they named Lomentospora prolificans, was thought incorrectly to be related to the genus Beauveria - a group of insect-pathogenic soil fungi affiliated with the order Hypocreales.

[5][6] The genus name "Lomentospora" referred to the shape of the apex of the spore-bearing cell, which the authors interpreted to be a rachis resembling a bean pod of the sort constricted at each seed.

[8] In 1991, Guého and De Hoog re-examined a set of cultures of Scedosporium-like fungi from clinical cases by careful morphological examination and the evaluation of DNA-DNA reassociation complementarity.

Along with two strains from their own work, they found the cultures of Hennebert & Desai and Malloch & Salkin to constitute a single species which they confirmed to belong in the genus Scedosporium.

[c] Along with other fungi, Lomentospora prolificans has been isolated from soils of Ficus benjamina and Heptapleurum actinophyllum plantings in hospitals, suggesting that these materials have potential to serve as reservoirs of nosocomial fungal pathogens.

[8] Infections caused by Lomentospora prolificans are recognized to be difficult to treat due to the tendency of this species to exhibit resistance to many commonly used antifungal agents.