Penicillium albocoremium, a new taxon from tulip bulbs in Iran

Abstract

In recent years, tulip flowers have been grown extensively in parks and green spaces of Urmia city (NW Iran). During the surveys in a period from 2014–16, characteristic symptoms of the blue mold rot were observed on both planted and stored tulip bulbs, as the bulbs were covered with a white to bluish-green mycelia and spores. In order to determine the fungi associated with tulip bulbs (<em>Tulipa gesneriana</em> L.), the bulbs with characteristic rot symptoms or signs (Fig. 1a-c) were collected from different green spaces and municipal greenhouses. The fungi were isolated in two ways: First, small pieces of fungal colonies were taken with a sterile fine needle and a suspension of spores was prepared in sterile distilled water. A small aliquot of suspension was spread all over the PDA medium amended with streptomycin sulfate. Second, the bulbs were washed thoroughly under tap water, then surface sterilized in 0.5% sodium hypochlorite solution for 10 minutes and washed for three times again with sterile distilled water. The outer parts of the bulbs were removed and small pieces were taken from the inner parts and put on PDA medium (Kim <em>et al</em>. 2006, Valdez <em>et al</em>. 2009). Petri dishes were incubated at 25±2º C in dark. The isolated fungi were purified using single spore method and the purified isolates were stored on PCA slants at 4° C. From the 40 obtained isolates, except three which were belonged to the genus <em>Rhizopus</em>, the remaining isolates had typical characteristics of the genus <em>Penicillium</em>