In Nara prefecture, some parasites of scale insects on tea twigs were frequently found for the past several years. One of these parasites formed the scarlet perithecia and red to orange horny masses of conidia round the edge of the scale insects.
In the raing season, when the population of the mulberry scale (
Pseudaulacaspis pentagona Trag. & Tozz.) increased large, this fungus tended to appear in abundance. Because of the development of the fungal parasite, the population of the living scale insects tended to decrease.
In this respect, we considered the possible use of this fungus for the purpose of the microbial control of the mulberry scale and tried to isolate and identify the fungal parasite.
The perithecia on the scale insects were globose with a small ostiolar papilla, 380-450μin diameter. They had 8-spored cylindrical asci. The ascospores were ellipsoidal, uniseptate, smooth, pale brown, slightly constricted at the septum and 15-22×8-9μ in size.
The conidia were cylindrical, slightly bended towards the both ends, hyaline, smoth, 7-11 septa and 89-153×5-8μ in size.
Sporodochial structure and conidial size of this species formed in culture did not differ from those formed on the diseased insects.
Both ascospore and conidium produced the conidia in culture but the perithecial formation has never been found in culture.
Judging from the morphology and its natural habitat, we concluded that this species should correctly be identified as
Nectria flainnica (Tulasne) DINGLEY (conidial state is
Fusarium coccophilum. (Desm.) Wollenw. & Reink.) defined by DINGLEY and also by BOOTH. This was also endorsed by Dr. T. Yokoyama, Institute for Fermantation, Osaka.
Concerning the Japanese name, we recommended the application of the oldest name "Kaigaramushi Shokobyo" (scarlet fungus disease of scale insects) proposed by Nomura to the fungus disease included in this category.
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