Astragalicola ephedrae sp. nov., isolated from the stem of Ephedra gerardiana in Ladakh, India.

An endophytic fungus designated as EIT4 (MCC 9756) was isolated from the asymptomatic stem tissue of Ephedra gerardiana collected from the Kargil district of Ladakh Union territory, India. Phylogenetic analysis based on concatenated nuclear ribosomal ITS (internal transcribed spacer) and LSU (large ribosomal subunit) sequence datasets revealed its placement within the genus Astragalicola. However, it formed a separate clade exhibiting strong bootstrap support value (80%). The highest nrITS sequence similarity between EIT4 and species of Astragalicola was 95.19% (A. vasilyevae) and 94.26% (A. amorpha), while nrLSU sequence similarity was 99.27% (A. amorpha). Morphologically, EIT4 differs from the other species of Astragalicola in having larger sub-globose to pyriform conidiomata, smaller and mostly unbranched conidiophores, and polymorphic translucent conidia with two terminal guttules. Based on combined cultural, micromorphological, molecular, and phylogenetic analyses, EIT4 represents a novel species in the genus Astragalicola proposed here as Astragalicola ephedrae sp. nov. Detailed description and illustrations of the novel species are provided. The type strain is EIT4 (= MCC 9756 = MN29).