Septoria pistaciarum Caracc., Boll. Stud. Inform. R. Giard Colon Palermo 13: 10 [extr.] (1934).

Vitale, Salvatore, Aiello, Dalia, Guarnaccia, Vladimiro, Luongo, Laura, Galli, Massimo, Crous, Pedro W., Polizzi, Giancarlo, Belisario, Alessandra & Voglmayr, Hermann, 2018, Liberomycespistaciae sp. nov., the causal agent of pistachio cankers and decline in Italy, MycoKeys 40, pp. 29-51 : 34-35

Septoria pistaciarum Caracc., Boll. Stud. Inform. R. Giard Colon Palermo 13: 10 [extr.] (1934).

Type

of Asteromella pistaciarum . TURKEY. Ankara, on leaves of Pistacia vera , 29 Oct. 1944, H. Bremer (lectotype of Asteromella pistaciarum designated here: W 1973-15537, MBT383208; isotype: W 1979-11134).

Description

of the asteromella-like spermatial morph.Infection localised, producing distinct, brown, irregularly polyangular lesions of 0.5-1.5 mm diam., successively confluent, sharply delimited by leaf veins, visible on both sides of the leaf. Pycnidia (57 –)69–101(– 106) µm wide, (99 –)107–134(– 143) µm high (n=12), subepidermal, gregarious, solitary or in small groups, ellipsoid to pyriform, dark brown to black, with a central, circular, well-visible apical ostiole; peridium 8-19 µm wide, pseudoparenchymatous, of dark brown cells (3.0 –)3.8–7.0(– 10.3) µm diam. (n=50). Inner side lined with hyaline cells giving rise to phialides and short conidiophores. Conidiophores 1-3-celled, cells more or less square-shaped, bearing intercalary and terminal phialides. Conidiogenous cells enteroblastic, phialidic, hyaline, (3.7 –)5.0–8.5(– 10.5) × (2.5 –)3.0–4.0(– 4.7) µm (n=30), ampulliform to broadly lageniform, straight or curved. Conidia (3.4 –)4.3–5.4(– 6.6) × (0.9 –)1.0–1.3(– 1.5) μm, l/w = (2.8 –)3.5–4.8(– 6.1) (n=67), oblong, 1-celled, hyaline, with 1-2 subterminal guttules.

Notes.

The classification and description of the lectotype of Asteromella pistaciarum is here added as it is morphologically similar to Liberomyces pistaciae and the latter had therefore initially been misidentified as the former (see e.g. Pažoutová et al. 2012, who included a sequence of Liberomyces pistaciae as Asteromella pistaciarum in their phylogenies). In addition, Asteromella pistaciarum has not been addressed in previous taxonomic accounts. Two isotype specimens are located in the Natural History Museum of Vienna (W) from which W 1973-15537 is here selected as the lectotype based on preservation and abundance of the specimens. In the original description, Bremer and Petrak (1947) reported a close association of Asteromella pistaciarum with Septoria pistaciarum and an immature mycosphaerella-like sexual morph, which they consider to represent the same species. We agree with this treatment and consider Asteromella pistaciarum to be the spermatial morph of Septoria pistaciarum , the former therefore becoming a synonym of the latter based on priority.