2018 Volume 2018 Issue 69 Pages 55-59
Roots of Aconitum plants (A. japonicum and A. carmichaelii) have been used as traditional Japanese Kampo medicine. They are listed in The Japanese Pharmacopoeia as raw materials of Kampo medicine, “Bushi”. In commercial plantations of A. japonicum in Iwate Prefecture, blighting and wilting symptoms were observed in 2016. Diseased stems were water-soaked, dark brown, and displayed both white mycelium and brown sclerotia on the basal parts of the stems. Based on morphological traits, internal transcribed spacer sequence analysis, and pathogenicity tests, the causative fungus was identified as Sclerotium rolfsii (Sexual morph: Athelia rolfsii). S. rolfsii on A. carmichaelii has been reported in China, but not on A. japonicum. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of S. rolfsii causing southern blight disease in A. japonicum in Japan or elsewhere in the world.
