Epicoccum puerense Y. Wang, Y. Tu, X. Chen, H. Jiang, H. Ren, Q. Lu, C. Wei & W. Lv, 2024

Wang, Yuchun, Tu, Yiyi, Chen, Xueling, Jiang, Hong, Ren, Hengze, Lu, Qinhua, Wei, Chaoling & Lv, Wuyun, 2024, Didymellaceae species associated with tea plant (Camellia sinensis) in China, MycoKeys 105, pp. 217-251 : 217-251

Epicoccum puerense Y. Wang, Y. Tu, X. Chen, H. Jiang, H. Ren, Q. Lu, C. Wei & W. Lv sp. nov.

Fig. 8

Etymology.

Named after the location where it was collected, Puer City.

Description.

Sexual morph: undetermined. Asexual morph: Pycnidia smooth, subglobose to ellipsoidal, hyaline. Conidia were not of uniform size, ellipsoidal to subcylindrical, pale yellow to green, smooth- and thin-walled, abundant, generated from pycnidia, aseptate, 6.8–15 × 3.6–7.2 µm (av. = 9.7 ± 1.9 × 4.7 ± 0.7 µm, n = 30). Mycelia lateral branching, septate, hyaline.

Culture characteristics.

Colonies on PDA reaching 32–41 mm diam. after 7 days at 28 ° C in the dark, margin irregular, aerial mycelium flat, olivaceous to buff, white edges; reverse black to brown, pale buff edges. Pycnidia and conidia produced on the colony surface after cultured for 14 days at 28 ° C in the dark. Colonies on OA reaching 51–58 mm diam. after 7 days at 28 ° C in the dark, margin regular, aerial mycelium flat, rosy to pale green, white edges; reverse pale buff to whitish.

Materials examined.

China, Yunnan Province, Puer City, Jingdong Yizu Autonomous County, from diseased leaves of C. sinensis , 13 Jun 2020, Y. C. Wang, Holotype HMAS 352390 , culture ex-type CGMCC 3.24249 = YCW 2117 . Yunnan Province, from healthy leaves of C. sinensis cv. Dalicha, 22 Jun 2019, Y. C. Wang, culture ex-type CGMCC 3.24243 = YCW 224 .

Notes.

Epicoccum puerense is closely related to E. dendrobii with high statistical support (Fig. 3 ). Epicoccum puerense has 1 bp difference in ITS from E. dendrobii . The conidia size is larger than that of E. dendrobii . In the present study, five strains were isolated from healthy or diseased tea plant leaves. It was isolated and identified from tea plant for the first time.

Figures

Figure 3. Phylogenetic tree generated by Maximum Likelihood analysis, based on the combined ITS, LSU, RPB 2 and TUB 2 dataset of Epicoccum species. Bootstrap support values above 50 % and Bayesian posterior values above 0.75 are shown at each node (ML / PP). Pleiochaeta setosa CBS 118.25 / CBS 496.63 and Co. palmarum CBS 400.71 are used as outgroups. Ex-type strains are emphasised in bold.

Figure 8. Epicoccum puerense YCW 2117 A, B colony on PDA (front and reverse) C, D colony on OA (front and reverse) E mycelia F pycnidia forming on PDA G conidia. Scale bars: 10 μm (E – G).