Isolation and morphological studies

Leaves of Foeniculum vulgare and Saposhnikovia divaricata with necrotic spots were respectively collected from Wenjiang district (Chengdu, Sichuan in June, 2015) and Badong county (Yichang, Hubei in July, 2016) in China. For fungal isolation, the samples were stored in sterile plastic bags and transported to the laboratory. The tissues were cut into small segments and placed on moist filter papers within Petri dishes then incubated at 25 °C to stimulate sporulation. After 24 h, the samples were examined under a stereomicroscope. Alternaria-like spores were picked up and inoculated to potato dextrose agar (PDA: Difco, Montreal, Canada) using sterilized glass needles. All isolated pure cultures were inoculated to test-tube slants and stored at 4 °C. Dried cultures from the single spore and ex-type strains were deposited in the Fungi Herbarium of Yangtze University (YZU), Jingzhou, Hubei, China.

To determine colonial characteristics (size, color and texture of colony), the strains were cultured on PDA at 25 °C for 7 days in darkness. To analyze the morphological features of conidia (conidial size, shape, sporulation, etc.), fresh mycelia were transferred on potato carrot agar (PCA) and V8 juice agar (V8A) then incubated at 22 °C under an 8 hour photoperiod for 7 days (Simmons 2007). Conidia were mounted into a lactophenol picric acid solution and digital images were captured under a Nikon ECLIPSE Ni-U microscope system (Nikon, Japan). Conidia (n = 50) were randomly selected for determining the morphology and sporulation patterns were also photographed at the same time.