Bipolaris luttrellii Alcorn, Mycotaxon 39: 378 (1990)

Index Fungorum number: IF 127658; MycoBank number: MB 127658; Facesoffungi number: FoF 01302; Fig. 1

Saprobic on Poaceae sp. Sexual morph: Not observed. Asexual morph: Conidiophores up to 200 μm long and 7–10 μm thick, arising singly or in groups of a few conidia, simple, septate, straight or flexuous, sometimes geniculate at the upper part, smooth, pale to mid-brown. Conidiogenous nodes dark brown, distinct. Conidia (75–)90–125×17–26(–)28) μm (x̄ =107×21 μm, n=30), straight or curved, broadly fusiform or obclavate fusiform, widest near centre, tapering towards rounded ends, pale to mid brown, 5–9-distoseptate, smooth-walled. Hilum slightly protuberant, single germ tubes arising from each end.

Material examined – China, Guizhou Province, Guizhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences, dead leaves of Poaceae sp., 20 July 2015, Kasun M. Thambugala CN020 (MFLU 16-2836), living culture MFLUCC 16–0281, GZCC 15–0045.

Host – Dactyloctenium aegyptium, on dead leaves of unidentified Poaceae host (Alcorn 1990; This study)

Distribution – Australia, China (Alcorn 1990; This study)

GenBank numbers – OQ154965 (ITS)

Notes – Bipolaris luttrelli is only known from the type specimen before this record. This species is morphologically similar to B. setarieae (Manamgoda et al. 2014). Bipolaris luttrelli can be distinguished from its sister taxa by having fewer conidiogenous loci on the conidiophores and its darker conidia with pale end cells (Manamgoda et al. 2014). In our phylogenetic analyses (Fig. 2), our strain clustered with the ex-type strain of B. luttrelli with a higher bootsrap support. There are 10 base pair differences between our strain and the ex-type strain in ITS. Both of these strains lack tef1 gene region. Therefore, we identified our strain as B. luttrelli and provides the first report from China.

Figure 1 – Bipolaris luttrelli (MFLU 16–2836, new host record) a, b, Conidiophores and conidia on the host c-f. Conidiophores g–k, Conidia. Scale bars: c–k=25 µm

 Figure 2 – One of the most parsimonious trees obtained in the combined analyses of ITS-gapdh-tef1. Maximum Parsimony values≥70% and BYPP≥0.90 are indicated above the nodes. The ex-types and reference strains are in bold; the new record is in blue. The tree is rooted with Curvularia buchloes (CBS 246.49) and C. subpapendorfii (CBS 656.74)