Identification of Puccinia iridis on Iris domestica in Korea

A rust fungus on Iris domestica (syn. Belamcanda chinensis) from China was previously identified as Puccinia iridis. Accordingly, the identity of the rust fungus on the same host species in Korea needs to be reexamned. Morphological characteristics of the Korean materials matched with P. iridis. Molecular phylogenetic analyses based on internal transcribed spacer and large subunit rDNA sequences of two representative materials confirmed the identification by high sequence similarities of 100% and 99% with the reference sequences available in NCBI GenBank database. Phylogenetic tree inferred from neighbor-joining method proved them to be clustered in P. iridis group. Thus, the rust fungus on I. domestica in Korea was determined as P. iridis. On the other hand, a previous record that Puccinia belamcandae is another rust agent on I. domestica in Korea should be reconfirmed in future.