Botrytis cinerea causing grey mould on Epimedium brevicornum Maxim in China

Epimedium brevicornum Maxim (EbM) is a perennial herb grown in China for traditional Chinese medicines. Grey mould symptoms were observed on EbM leaves in several fields in Hubei Province, China, from April to June in 2015, 2016 and 2017. V-shaped blights or concentric rings appeared initially on the basal leaves, followed by necrosis gradually spreading from the tips and margins to the entire leaf. Severely infected leaves were rolled or distorted and became brittle. A fungal isolate, MF468110, was recovered from diseased plants and identified as Botrytis cinerea based on its morphological features and sequence analysis of multiple genes. The colony on potato dextrose agar was initially white with abundant fluffy aerial mycelia and turned grey with numerous irregular black sclerotia. Sequence analysis of the G3PDH, RPB2 and HSP60 genes found high similarity with other reference strains representing the species B. cinerea. Pathogenicity tests showed that the symptoms were similar on EbM leaves after inoculation with a conidial suspension and the re-isolated fungi were morphologically similar to the isolates used for inoculation, indicating that the isolate MF468110 was pathogenic to EbM. This is the first report of B. cinerea causing grey mould on EbM in China.