Cercosporella virgaureae
Cercosporella virgaureae (Thüm.) Allesch., Hedwigia 34: 286.
≡ Ramularia virgaureae Thüm., Fungi Austr. Exs., Cent. 11: no. 1072. 1874.
Index Fungorum number: IF 121662; Facesoffungi number: FoFxxx, Fig. 1
Description: see Braun (1995); Kirschner 2009).
Material examined: see Braun (1995); Kirschner 2009).
Fig. 1. Neopseudocercospora terminaliae (CBS H-21431, holotype; re-drawn from Crous et al. 2013). a, b. Conidiophores giving rise to conidia. c. Conidia. Scale bars = 10 μm.
Importance and role
Importance of genus to ecosystem
Species of Cercosporella are plant pathogenic showing as leaf spots. Cercosporella disease causes reduced yield, poor quality fruit and in severe cases death of the host plant (Ellis and Converse 1991).
Industrial relevance and applications
The industrial applications of Cercosporella has not been investigated. Compounds produced from Cercosporella may be useful in medical and pharmaceutical industries.
Quarantine significance
Several species of Cercosporella act as biological control agents. C. acroptili and C. centaureicola are potential biological control agent of Russian knapweed and yellow starthistle respectively (Berner et al. 2005; Eskandari et al. 2007). Cercosporella sp are effective biological control agent of Hamakua pamakani in Hawaii (Gardner 1990).
Biochemical importance of the genus, chemical diversity or applications
Cercosporella produces wide range of chemical and phytotoxins but more studies are needed for identification of those compounds. Acetosellin1 is a yellow pigment isolated from the mycelium of Cercosporella acetosella as a reduced azaphilone metabolite (Nasini et al. 2002).
Diversity of the genus
Even though there are 276 Cercosporella epithets in Index fungorum, the real number of species is less as most species have been synonymized and transferred to other genera such as Calonectria, Doassansiopsis, Eriomycopsis, Mycocentrospora, Mycopappus, Neophloeospora, Neopseudocercosporella, Oculimacula, Passalora, Pseudocercospora, Ramularia, Spermospora, Sphaerulina, Xenostigmina amongst others. Cercosporella comprises 71 species known on a wide range of plants such as Asteraceae, Betulaceae, Brassicaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Sapindaceae, Urticaceae amongst others and has a worldwide geographical distribution viz. Alaska, Canada, China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Japan Kazakhstan, Kenya, Korea, Oregon, Switzerland, Taiwan, Washington amongst others. Cercosporella seems to be a diverse genus and more species of can be discovered in future studies.
Recent News
Recent paper to be publishedRecent Genus
TrichothallusStrigopodia
Xylopezia
Recent Species
Xylopezia hemisphaericaXenosporium mirabile
Wettsteinina gigantospora
