Abstract: Hedera nepalensis var. sinensis (Araliaceae) is an ornamental plant that is widely planted in gardens in southern China. Black rot were observed on H. nepalensis in autumn of 2009 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. The disease was usually found to be common from September to November. Black watersoaked spots initially appeared in the edge of the leaves, on the base of leaf petioles and creeping young stems, followed by irregular large lesions in the infected leaves and black constriction in the infected petiole. During long wet periods, the surface of the infected plants showed white mycelium while the inside become soft and watery. At last the disease resulted in the whole vines death. The occurence of disease in fields had obvious center and spread rapidly, and showed contiguous serious disease. The strain was isolated from the boundary between the diseased and healthy part by using tissue isolation technique. The morphological observations showed that the conidia wall was thin, nonseptate, spindleshaped to narrow oval, and the size was (18-25) μm× (4-5) μm, average of 193 μm× 47 μm. The ascus had double wall, eight ascospores in each ascus, ascospores monospores, colorless, transparent, smoothwalled, and the size was (19-28) μm× (7-9) μm, average of 223 μm× 75 μm. The strain rDNA ITS sequence is 557 bp. The isolated strain was identified as Botryosphaeria dothidea de Not (anamorph is Fusicoccum aesculi Corda) based on its morphological characteristics, pathogenicity tests and rDNA ITS sequence analyses.

Key words: Botryosphaeria dothidea, pathogen identification, rDNA ITS sequence, groundcovers