The asexual morph and molecular phylogeny of endemic Phyllactinia verruculosa on Indigofera tinctoria

Abstract

Phyllactinia verruculosa is a powdery mildew species (Erysiphaceae, tribe Phyllactinieae) so far only known from its type material collected in China on Indigofera scabrida in 1992, which only comprised the sexual morph. Two asexual morph samples were observed, one was collected on I. tinctoria on the campus of Guizhou University, Guiyang, China, and another one, on I. scabrida, was borrowed from Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The anamorphic characters were observed, described and illustrated. The phylogenetic analysis of the combination of internal transcribed spacer regions (ITS) and 28S rDNA sequences showed that Ph. verruculosa is phylogenetically distantly related from other Phyllactinia species. To our knowledge, this is the first record of the asexual morph and first ITS+28S sequences for Ph. verruculosa, and I. tinctoria is a new host record for this species.