Diaporthe cercidis C.M. Tian & Q. Yang

Yang, Qin, Fan, Xin-Lei, Guarnaccia, Vladimiro & Tian, Cheng-Ming, 2018, High diversity of Diaporthe species associated with dieback diseases in China, with twelve new species described, MycoKeys 39, pp. 97-149 : 97

Diaporthe cercidis C.M. Tian & Q. Yang sp. nov. Figure 8

Diagnosis.

Diaporthe cercidis can be distinguished from the phylogenetically closely related species D. pescicola in larger alpha conidia.

Holotype.

CHINA. Jiangsu Province: Nanjing city, on twigs and branches of Cercis chinensis , 11 Nov. 2015, Q. Yang (holotype: BJFC-S1478; ex-type culture: CFCC 52565).

Etymology.

Named after the host genus on which it was collected, Cercis .

Description.

Conidiomata pycnidial, immersed in bark, scattered, slightly erumpent through the bark surface, nearly flat, discoid, with a solitary undivided locule. Ectostromatic disc grey to brown, one ostiole per disc. Locule circular, undivided, 135-200 μm diam. Conidiophores 7-17 × 1.4-2.1 μm, phialidic, unbranched, straight or slightly curved, tapering towards the apex. Alpha conidia hyaline, aseptate, fusiform to oval, biguttulate, 6.5-10 × 3-3.5 μm (av. = 8.6 × 3.3 μm, n = 30). Beta conidia hyaline, aseptate, filiform, straight or hamate, eguttulate, 20-28.5 × 1-1.3 µm (av. = 25.5 × 1.2 µm, n = 30).

Culture characters.

Cultures incubated on PDA at 25 °C in darkness showed colony at first white, becoming pale brown with yellowish dots with age, flat, with dense and felted mycelium, with visible solitary or aggregated conidiomata at maturity.

Additional specimens examined.

CHINA. Jiangsu Province: Yangzhou city, on twigs and branches of Ginkgo biloba , 11 Nov. 2015, N. Jiang, living culture CFCC 52566 (BJFC-S1479).

Notes.

Diaporthe cercidis is distinguished from D. pescicola in the ITS, cal and tef1 loci (13/458 in ITS, 47/442 in cal and 6/328 in tef1). Morphologically, D. cercidis differs from D. pescicola in shorter conidiophores (7-17 vs. 21-35 μm) and larger alpha conidia (6.5-10 × 3-3.5 vs. 6-8.5 × 2-3 μm) ( Dissanayake et al. 2017a).