Pseudoepicoccum oryzae sp.nov. on Exotic Paddy Seeds

摘要

During Quarantine processing of exotic crop germplasm at National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, Regional Station, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, a novel species of dematiaceous hyphomycetous fungus, belonging to the genus Pseudoepicoccum Ellis, was encountered. Standard blotter test observations under stereo-binocular microscope on paddy seed samples imported from Belgium included the presence of sporodochia of Pseudoepicoccum on the husk of two seed samples. Literature survey revealed that the present taxon is new and found for the first time on paddy seed and thus named as Pseudoepicoccum oryzae sp. nov. Present taxon differs from the existing species, viz., Pseudoepicoccum cocos (Ellis, 1971) and P. tectonae (Sharma et al., 1985) in possessing ovoid conidia, with a constriction nearer to apex and truncated at base and bigger in size.