Seifertia Partr. & Morgan-Jones, Mycotaxon 83: 348 (2002).

MycoBank number: MB 28681; Index Fungorum number: IF 28681; Facesoffungi number: FoF 08302; 2 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2020), 2 species with molecular data.

Type speciesSeifertia azaleae (Peck) Partr. & Morgan-Jones, Mycotaxon 83: 350 (2002).

Periconia azaleae Peck, Bull. Buffalo Soc. nat. Sci. 1(2): 69 (1873).

Notes – The generic placement of Seifertia azalea was uncertain according to morphological study, thus, Seifertia was previously treated as Periconia (Peck 1873), Pycnostysanus (Mason 1941) and Sorocybe (Ellis 1976, Carmichael et al. 1980). Seifert et al. (2007) placed Seifertia in Dothideomycetes, as closely related to Mycosphaerella mycopappi and Crous et al. (2009a, 2013b) re-examined Xenostigmina and confirmed that it is a synanamorph of Mycopappus and allied to Seifertia in Pleosporales in combined ITS and LSU phylogenetic analysis. Tian et al. (2015) accepted Xenostigmina and Mycopappus in Melanommataceae, but ruled out Seifertia according to multiple gene phylogenetic analyses. Li et al. (2016c) transferred S. azalea to Melanommataceae with a new species S. shangrilaensis collected from living rachides of Rhododendron decorum in South-west China. Seifertia is known to cause bud blight or bud blast disease of Rhododendron in China, Japan, Europe and North America (Mason 1941, Ellis 1976, Partridge & Morgan-Jones 2002, Glawe & Hummel 2006, Li et al. 2016c).

Species

  • Seifertia azaleae