The tree was rooted to Magnaporthe grisea (GenBank AF362554) Fig. 3 The single most parsimonious trees obtained from a heuristic search with 100 random taxon

additions of the combined ITS and TEF sequence alignment. The scale bar shows 100 changes and bootstrap support values from 1000 replicates are shown at the nodes (format: parsimony analysis/distance analysis with HKY85 substitution model). The tree was rooted to Beauveria bassiana (GenBank AY532027 and AY531936 for ITS and TEF, respectively) Taxonomy The present study resulted in the discovery of a novel genus of hyphomycetes in the Dothideomycetes containing several species that are associated with SBFS on apples and pawpaw. These taxa are treated below: Scleroramularia Batzer & Crous, gen. nov. MycoBank MB517454 Etymology: Sclero-ramularia; after the presence of sclerotia, and its morphological similarity to the genus Ramularia. Ramulariae morphologice Birinapant in vitro valde similis, sed formatione sclerotiorum in cultura distinguitur. Hyphomycetous. Mycelium creeping, superficial and submerged, consisting of hyaline, smooth, branched, septate, 1–2 μm diam hyphae. Conidiophores mostly reduced to conidiogenous cells, or with one supporting cell. Conidiogenous cells solitary, erect, intercalary on hyphae, subcylindrical, straight, with 1–2 terminal loci, rarely with a lateral

locus; scars thickened, darkened and somewhat refractive. Conidia in branched chains, hyaline, BMN 673 order smooth, finely guttulate, straight or gently curved if long and thin; basal conidia mostly narrowly cylindrical, 0–4-septate; intercalary and terminal conidia becoming more narrowly ellipsoid to fusoid-ellipsoid, 0–4-septate, at times also anastomosing via hyphal bridges at ends of conidia; hila thickened, darkened and this website somewhat refractive. Commonly forming black, globose, sclerotium-like bodies superficially on the agar surface when cultivated. Type species: Scleroramularia pomigena Batzer & Crous, sp. nov. Notes:

Scleroramularia is morphologically similar to the genus Ramularia, but distinct in that it forms black sclerotia in culture and its conidia frequently remain attached in long chains. Kirschner (2009) recently used SEM to study the conidiogenesis of the genus Ramularia, and revealed it to have conidiogenous loci similar to the Cladosporium-type (circular rim with a central dome) (Bensch et al. 2010; Schubert et al. 2007). Scleroramularia has a similar conidiogenesis (Fig. 4), though conidia remain attached via a pore in the central dome for a much longer period than is the case in Ramularia, where the conidia dislodge quite easily. Phylogenetically, Scleroramularia is distinct from Ramularia (Capnodiales), forming a distinct lineage with closest sister taxa being those from Pleosporales and Botryosphaeriales (Fig. 1) Fig. 4 Scanning electron micrographs of Scleroramularia spp. showing conidiogenesis, conidial hila and scars. A, B, D–F. S. shaanxiensis. C. S. henaniensis.