Abstract
Cryphonectria cubensis and Endothia eugeniae are fungal pathogens of Eucalyptus and clove that were reduced to synonymy on the basis of results of cross-inoculation studies, isozyme analysis, cultural studies, and morphology. A previous phylogenetic study on Cryphonectria, based on sequence variation in the ITS region of the ribosomal RNA operon, also supported the conspecificity of C. cubensis and E. eugeniae, but was based on only one E. eugeniae isolate. New collections from clove in Brazil and Indonesia have become available, providing the opportunity to reconsider the conspecificity of C. cubensis and E. eugeniae. The occurrence of C. cubensis on clove was confirmed based on morphological comparisons and phylogenetic analyses of ribosomal DNA and β-tubulin gene sequence data. In addition to C. cubensis, other fungi morphologically similar to Cryphonectria species on the basis of their orange stromata were present on some clove specimens, but no isolates were available for these fungi. Furthermore, some isolates, for which no herbarium material exists, grouped separately from the C. cubensis clade and closer to the Cryphonectria clade. The presence of more than one closely related fungus on clove raises questions relating to the legitimacy of the synonymy of E. eugeniae and C. cubensis. Based on the presence of C. cubensis on the type specimen of E. eugeniae, we recognize the synonymy of the two fungi but provide evidence that other fungi, more closely related to Cryphonectria spp. than to C. cubensis, are present on clove.
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Received: October 21, 2002 / Accepted: February 13, 2003
Acknowledgments We are grateful to Dr. C.S. Hodges, who provided a wide range of collections used in this study and his valuable advice. We also thank many colleagues, including Dr. Brett Summerell, Dr. Dan Sembel, Dr. Edward Lieuw, Mr. Paul Clegg, Dr. Elaine Davison, and Dr. Ken Old, for either supplying cultures or specimens or making it possible to collect material used in this study. We are also grateful to the curators of many herbaria listed in Table 2 for loans of specimens. This study was made possible by grants from the National Research Foundation (NRF), members of the Tree Pathology Co-operative Programme (TPCP), and the THRIP support programme of the Department of Trade and Industry, South Africa.
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Myburg, H., Gryzenhout, M., Wingfield, B. et al. Conspecificity of Endothia eugeniae and Cryphonectria cubensis: a re-evaluation based on morphology and DNA sequence data. Mycoscience 44, 187–196 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10267-003-0101-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10267-003-0101-8