Pleospora herbarum (Japanese Fungi on Plants)

Japanese Fungi on Plants No.46 before next top

Pleospora herbarum (Fr.) Rabenh.:Ces. & de Not. [=Stemphylium botryosum non Wallr. sens. auct.]
Classification: Ascomycota, Locuoascomycetes, Dothideales, Pleosporaceae

Distributed widely in Japan. Causes leaf spot and leaf blight of wide range of crops, such as sugar beet, onion, alfalfa, clovers. Sometimes isolated from other wild plants as a pathogen or leaf inhabitant. Disperses by scattering conidia. As a teleomorph, pseudothecia are produced in the host tissues.

Characteristics: Plant pathogen, Leaf inhabitant Symptom:

		Morphology: Teleomorph: Producing short clavate to cylindrical asci in brown pseudothecia. Ascospores yellow to yellowish brown, oval to ellipsoid, 26-50 x 10-20 um with 1-5 vertical and 7 transverse septa. Anamorph: On pale brown to brown conidiophores, producing conidia pale brown to olive brown, subspherical to broadly ellipsoidal, surface minutely verruculose, 27-42 x 24-30 um, with 1-3 vertical and 3 transverse septa. Often constricted at the middle transverse septa.
Conidia

Herbarium specimen in NIAES

Specimen No.	Scientific name	Host name	Host scientific name	Symptoms	Geographical origin	Collected date	Collector
110-1-112	Pleospora herbarum	Alfalfa	Medicago sativa	Leaf blight	Chiba, Chiba	1961.6.2	Tominaga, T.
110-1-117	"	"	"	"	Saku, Nagano	1961.9.13	"
110-1-118	"	"	"	"	Kiyosato, Yamanashi	1961.9.14	"
110-1-115	"	"	"	"	Haga, Tochigi	1962.5.30	"
110-1-145	"	"	"	"	Toyohashi, Aichi	1969.9.30	"

(Described by Tsukiboshi, T., NIAES, Microbial Systemtics Lab., 2002)