Velvet blight is a disease that affects the stems, branches, leaves, fruits or trunks of plants and trees. This disease is primarily caused by three fungal species from the genus Septobasidium: S. bogoriense, S. pilosum and S. theae.
It is known to affect mainly tea plants (genus Thea).Subba Rao, M. K. "Report of the Mycologist." Adm. Rep. Tea sci. Dep. Unit. Plant. Ass. S. India, 1935-36. (1936): 46-54. The most studied of these species is S. bogoriense, most notably due to the work of Ernst Albert Gäumann. S. bogoriense is named after the Herbarium Bogoriense (Bogor, West Java, Indonesia) which is the place where it was first identified on the bark of an unspecified tree and named by E. Nyman on June 3, 1898. This species was also listed in Otto Warburg's Monsunia in 1900.
Distribution
This disease is mainly found in tropical climates in Southern Asia, however some scattering exists:
S. bogoriense
Java, Indonesia Sri Lanka Tonkin, China Japan North Queensland, Australia West Indies La Campana, Panama Northern Vietnam Washington, USA IndiaDas, G. M. "Observations on the association of ants with coccids of tea."Bulletin of entomological Research 50.03 (1959): 437-448.
S. pilosum
Java, Indonesia Taiwan Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA Florida, USA
S. theae
Java, Indonesia Lam dong, Viet Nam
Known primary hosts
S. bogoriense
Coffea, Cinchona, Thea, Broussonetia, Morus, Citrus, Manihot, Ficus elastica, Solanum quitoense, Erythrina, Crotalaria sp., Tephrosia candida, Leucaena glauca, Sesbania aegyptiaca, Lantana, Stachytarpheta mutabilis, Paritium, Calosanthes indica, Fraxinus, Marsdenia, Piper nigrum, Polyosma, Rosa, Wigandia kunthii, Macaranga tanarius, Bougainvillea,Sivapalan, A., and Fuziah Haji Hamdan. "Bacterial leaf spot of bougainvillea caused by Pseudomonas andropogonis in Brunei Darussalam." EPPO Bulletin27.2‐3 (1997): 273-275. Hibiscus rosa sub.sp. sinensis, and sub.sp. mangifera.
S. pilosum
Thea, Mangifera indica, Magnolia virginiana, and Artabotrys.
S. theae
Thea.
References
Further reading Warburg, Otto. Monsunia: Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Vegetation des süd-und ostasiatischen Monsungebietes. Vol. 1. W. Engelmann, 1900. Sarma, Y. R., N. Ramachandran, and M. Anandaraj. "Black pepper diseases in India." In: Diseases of Black Pepper. Proceedings of the Int. Pepper Comm. Wkshop. in Jt. Res. for Control of Black Pepper Diseases (1988): 27–29. Couch, John Nathaniel. "A monograph of Septobasidium. Part I. Jamaican species." Jour. Elisha Mitchell Soc 44 (1929): 242–260.
External links