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

Fig. 6

Etymology.

Named after the location where it was collected, Anhui Province.

Description.

Sexual morph: undetermined. Asexual morph: Pycnidia smooth, subglobose to ellipsoidal, pale brown, attached to mycelium. Conidia ellipsoidal to subcylindrical, pale yellow to green, smooth- and thin-walled, abundant, generated from pycnidia, composed of a single cell, 10.5–16 × 4.5–8 µm (av. = 13.4 ± 1.4 × 6.3 ± 0.7 µm, n = 30). Mycelia lateral branching, septate, hyaline.

Culture characteristics.

Colonies on PDA reaching 75–79 mm diam. after 7 days at 28 ° C in the dark, margin regular, covered by floccose aerial mycelium, greyish; reverse pale brown to pale buff, white edges. Pycnidia and conidia produced on the colony surface after being cultured for 14 days at 28 ° C in the dark. Colonies on OA reaching 81–85 mm diam. after 7 days at 28 ° C in the dark, margin irregular, aerial mycelium flat, whitish; reverse concolorous.

Materials examined.

China, Anhui Province, Anqing City, from diseased leaves of C. sinensis cv. Longjingchangye, 16 Nov 2019, Y. C. Wang, Holotype HMAS 352388 , culture ex-type CGMCC 3.24242 = YCW 961 . Yunnan Province, Puer City, Jingdong Yizu Autonomous County, from health leaves of C. sinensis , 13 Jun 2020, Y. C. Wang, culture ex-type CGMCC 3.24246 = YCW 1829 .

Notes.

Epicoccum anhuiense is closely related to E. latusicollum with high statistical support (Fig. 3 ). Epicoccum anhuiense has 5 bp differences in the TUB 2 sequence from E. latusicollum . In addition, E. anhuiense can be distinguished from E. latusicollum by the morphological features of its conidia and the conidia size of E. anhuiense (10.5–16 × 4.5–8 µm) is larger than that of D. prosopidis (4–6.5 × 2–3 µm). In the present study, eight strains were isolated from healthy or diseased tea plant leaves.

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 6. Epicoccum anhuiense YCW 961 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).