Cylindrocladium buxicola causes common box blight in Croatia

New York

2010

1169

BandaufführungSonderdruck

11129S

177972

In 2009, beds of Buxus sempervirens and newly planted B. sempervirens Suffruticosa in a park in Opatija, Croatia, showed extensive leaf and twig blight. Leaves with dark roundish spots turned red-brown and grey, then dropped. Shoots and stems had dieback with narrow blackish streaks on the bark surface. Two widely occurring fungal pathogens of common box, Volutella buxi and Puccinia buxi, were sporulating abundantly on the diseased plants. However, the presence of dark spots on the leaves and blackish streaks on the bark suggested Cylindrocladium buxicola (Henricot & Culham, 2002). The symptoms we observed were similar to C. buxicola infections observed in other European countries (Brand, 2005; EPPO, 2005; AGES, 2009). Detached stems kept in a moist chamber at 20 C for 5 days developed fruiting structures consistent with C. buxicola: hyaline cylindrical conidia (50 58 · 4 6 lm),