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A powdery mildew fungus found on Paeonia lutea at the Botanical Garden of Geneva (Switzerland) was identified as Erysiphe hypophylla based on morphological observations. The occurrence of E. hypophylla on Paeonia seemed curious, because host plants of this species have been restricted to a few Quercus species of the family Fagaceae. In this study, we determined the rDNA sequences of the powdery mildew specimens on Paeonia and E. hypophylla on Quercus to confirm the identity of the Paeonia fungus. The three sequences from the specimens on P. lutea were identical to one another in both ITS and 28S rDNA regions and also to the sequences of E. hypophylla on Q. robur, which supports the identification that the fungus on P. lutea is E. hypophylla. However, these sequences were also identical to the sequences of E. alphitoides on Quercus spp. and Oidium mangiferae on mango. This result suggests a possibility that E. hypophylla is conspecific to E. alphitoides. Further study is required to clarify whether E. hypophylla is a synonym of E. alphitoides or a distinct species.

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A preliminary analysis demonstrated that the powdery mildew fungus infecting Syringa spp. (lilacs) in different parts of the world is divided into two groups (S-type and K-type) based on the nucleotide sequences of the rDNA ITS regions. In spite of the marked genetic differences (only c . 94% similarity between ITS types), fungi belonging to these two ITS groups are difficult to distinguish based on morphological characteristics. To determine their geographical distribution, ITS haplotypes were determined for a total of 139 powdery mildew specimens collected in Asia, Europe and North and South America between 1977. Curiously, until 1990, only the S-type was found in Europe, whilst the K-type prevailed in East Asia. The first European specimen belonging to the K-type was collected in Ukraine in 1991. Other European K-type samples were collected in Lithuania and Switzerland in 2000, and in other countries after 2002. The incidence of the S-type decreased rapidly in Europe after the 1990s. This result strongly suggests that the K-type was introduced to Europe from East Asia in the 1990s and expanded from Eastern Europe westward, replacing the S-type present on the European lilacs. The K-type produces abundant chasmothecia (sexual fruiting bodies), whereas chasmothecia on the S-type are rare in Europe and East Asia. It is likely that the recent abundant production of chasmothecia on Syringa spp. in Central Europe is explained by the migration of the K-type to Europe.

Evidence is advanced for the existence of pathotypes in Eutypa lata. Two groups of pathotypes, respectively of high and low virulence to apricot, were identified on the basis of the uniform patterns of response obtained following the inoculation of single ascospore isolates to four cultivars of apricot in widely separated geographical regions.These pathotypes exhibited similar patterns of virulence to almond, in which there was some evidence for differences in the susceptibility of cultivars.Of the six isolates inoculated to pear, only one was pathogenic. The grapevine is believed to be a universal host, susceptible to a wide range of pathotypes of which only a few are capable of pathogenesis in hosts in which the pathogen is found infrequently.