Scientific Name: Arthrinium xenocordella

Describer: Crous

Common Name: nan

Title: First report of the fungus Arthrinium xenocordella as a plant pathogen

Summary:

Significance: Arthrinium xenocordella is a fungus that has been collected from soil (Crous and Groenewald, 2013), but also reported as an endophyte of Cocos nucifera (coconut) (de Oliveira, 2014). The reported distribution of A. xenocordella is Brazil (de Oliveira, 2014), Austria, and Zimbabwe (Crous and Groenewald, 2013). It has not been reported from North America. This fungus is of concern because it has recently been reported as a plant pathogen of pistachio.

Issues of Concern: Cultivated Pistacia vera (pistachio) trees in Sicily, Italy exhibited fruit blight on over 30 percent of the fruits. The initial symptom was external brown discoloration on the outside of immature fruits. As the disease progressed, the discoloration turned dark-brown to black and covered up to 50% of the fruit surface. A report from July 2017 showed that morphological and molecular analyses, as well as fulfillment of Koch’s postulates, confirmed Arthrinium xenocordella as the causal agent. This is the first report of A. xenocordella as a pathogen (Aiello et al., 2018).

References:

Aiello, D., S. Gulisano, G. Gusella, G. Polizzi, and V. Guarnaccia. 2018. First report of fruit blight caused by Arthrinium xenocordella on Pistacia vera in Italy. Plant Disease DOI: 10.1094/PDIS-02-18-0290-PDN.

Crous, P. W. and J. Z. Groenewald. 2013. A phylogenetic re-evaluation of Arthrinium. IMA Fungus 4(1):133-154.

de Oliveira, R. J. V. 2014. Diversidade e identificação de fungos endofíticos em folhas de Cocos nucifera L., em Goiana Pernambuco, com base em morfologia e sequências de rDNA. Master’s thesis, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Pernambuco.