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ABSTRACT
Summer snowflake/Leucojum aestivum L./is a medical bulbous plant which belongs to family Amarillydaceae. It is wild-spread as natural populations in Bulgaria and a valuable source of galantamine. A few virus and fungal diseases have been described on plants of family Amaryllidaceae but only fungal pathogens on summer snowflake. This paper is the first report of Serratia plymuthica and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia as causal agents of bulb decay of summer snowflake. To our knowledge, this is also the second report of phytopathogenic isolates of the identified two species.
The bacteria were isolated from plants in the region of Tutrakan (Bulgaria) close to the Danube River where pathogenic changes in plant tissues of bulbs of summer snowflake were detected in 2006. Pathogenicity to the natural plant host was confirmed by artificial inoculation. Identification was carried out by biochemical properties and sequence analysis. New hosts upon artificial inoculation of S. maltophilia and S. plymuthica are onion, hyacinth, tulip, narcissus, and crocus.
The established bacterial species are known inhabitants of the soil and rhizosphere, contaminants of food and water, human infectious agents, and represent a case, similar to Serratia marcescens, when a species can comprise saprophytic, plant, and human strains simultaneously.