Tilletia puccinelliae, a new species of reticulate-spored bunt fungus infecting Puccinellia distans

Abstract

A shipment of Fults alkaligrass seed (Puccinellia distans) grown in Washington state containing bunted florets was intercepted by quarantine officials at China’s Tianjin Entry-Exit Quarantine and Inspection Bureau. The bunted florets were filled with irregularly shaped, reticulately ornamented teliospores that germinated in a manner characteristic of systemically infecting Tilletia spp. on grass hosts in subfamily Pooideae. Based on morphological characters and a multigene phylogenetic analysis of the ITS region rDNA, eukaryotic translation elongation factor 1 alpha and a region of the second largest subunit of RNA polymerase II including a putative intein, the Puccinellia bunt is genetically distinct from known species of Tilletia and is proposed as a new species, T. puccinelliae.

• alkaligrass
• cool season grass smuts
• multigene phylogenetic analysis
• Tilletiales

PPNS 0523, Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agricultural, Natural and Human Resource Sciences Research Project No. WNP03837, Washington State University at Pullman. We thank Orlin Reinbold, Landmark Native Seeds, Spokane, Washington, and Victor Shaul, Washington Department of Agriculture Seed Lab, for providing alkali grass seed samples, Dr Christian Feuillet for assistance with the Latin description and Dr Kálmán Vánky, herbarium H.U.V., for input and advice. The Tianjin Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau project is supported by 20081K236 of AQSIQ, P.R. China.