Allophoma species (Pleosporales: Didymellaceae) associated with Thunbergia grandiflora in Guangxi Province, China

Thunbergia grandiflora belongs to the family Acanthaceae, and is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions. Three isolates of Allophoma were made from leaves of T. grandiflora in Guangxi Province, China.Phylogenetic analyses of combined ITS, rpb2, tub2 and LSU datasets indicate that one strain showed a fairly close affinity with A. minor and the other two strains clustered with A. pterospermicola. Evidences from morphology and sequence analysis indicate that GUCC 2070.7 is a novel species which we introduce herein as A. thunbergiae. This is the first report about taxa of Allophoma in this plant host.