The genus Hemileia (Berkeley & Broome, 1869) (Zaghouaniaceae, Pucciniales) has captured the attention of people all over the world because the type species of the genus, H. vastatrix Berk. & Broome, commonly known as coffee leaf rust fungus or orange coffee rust fungus, is one of the most devastating invasive fungal pathogens of economically important commodity crops (Avelino et al., 2015;Anonymous, 2016;McCook, 2019). Hemileia is comprised of some forty named species (Ritschel, 2005;Judith & Rossman, 2014). The genus is characterized by suprastomatal sori and hemispherical or kidney-shaped urediniospores with dorsal echinulate and ventral smooth surfaces. Because of these unique uredinial characteristics, about one-third of species named under the genus name Hemileia are based only on the uredinial morph. Current International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (the Shenzhen Code; Turland et al., 2018) accepts the priority of names of Hemileia species even if they are based on the uredinial anamorph.Species of Hemileia occur on forty genera in nine vascular plant families and mostly in subtropical and tropical regions worldwide (Ritschel, 2005). Among those plant families, each of two plant families, Apocynaceae and Rubiaceae, harbors about one-third of Hemileia species. In addition to the fact that one-third of species are anamorphic, because of often faced difficulty in identification of host species, particularly in old sterile specimens, and because of poor morphological features available as taxonomic characters, species delimitation and their classification in Hemileia have remained indecisive.This study aimed at confirming generic assignment a poorly understood hemileioid anamorphic fungus on Cape jasmine (Gardenia jasminoides J. Ellis) first collected in Taiwan and named as H. gardeniae-floridae by Sawada (1931) and identifying a hemileioid fungus on Golden gardenia, G. sootepensis Hutch., found in Thailand.
Specimens and morphological examinationSawada (1931) did not designate the type for H. gardeniae-floridae in the original description. The type specimen was discovered at the Mycological Herbarium, the University of Tsukuba (TSH), on which specimen label, "Type" was clearly hand-written by K. Sawada (Fig. 1A). The specimen designated as the type of Uredo gardeniae-floridae (Sawada) Hirats. f. (Hiratsuka, 1960) and additional two specimens on G. jasminoides deposited at TSH were also examined. Three specimens on G. sootepensis from Thailand deposited at the Herbarium of Systematic Mycology, Ibaraki University (IBAR) were compared to those on G. jasminoides for taxonomic Discovery of teliospores of a Cape jasmine rust fungus, Hemileia gardeniaefloridae (Pucciniales), and its occurrence in Thailand