Rust was observed on leaves and stems of Melilotus alba Medik. plants in Riley County, Kansas, in November 1999. Rust reoccurred during the summers of 2000 and 2001. Uredinia were orange to reddish brown and predominately hypophyllous. Infected leaves wilted and abscised prematurely. Urediniospores were one-celled, globoid or broadly ellipsoid, and measured 20 to 25 × 18 to 22 μm. Walls were 1.0 to 1.2 μm thick, echinulate, and with three to five (mostly four) pores. Pores were equatorial, or nearly so, in approximately one half of the spores examined and scattered in the other half. Telia occurred in the fall, were sparse, amphigenous, exposed, and much darker than uredinia. Teliospores were single-celled, ovoid, subglobose or ellipsoidal, and measured 18 to 25 × 15 to 21 μm. Wall thickness was 1.3 to 2 μm. Walls had ridges approximately 1 μm wide, 2 μm apart, and arranged in a longitudinal pattern as shown in photographs of Uromyces striatus (2). Pedicels were hyaline, fragile, and short. Pathogenicity tests were conducted in growth chambers (4) with monouredinial isolate K-SC-R1 from M. alba. Pots containing plants of 80 USDA Plant Introduction (PI) core accessions representing 18 Melilotus spp. were evaluated. Total accessions tested per species were: 22 M. alba, 2 M. altissimus, 3 M. dentata, 2 M. elegans, 1 M. hirsutus, 4 M. indica, 2 M. infestus, 2 M. italica, 25 M. officinalis, 2 M. polonicus, 2 M. segetalis, 2 M. siculus, 2 M. speciosus, 2 M. spicatus, 1 M. suaveolens,2 M. sulcatus, 2 M. tauricus, and 2 M. wolgicus. Various amounts of rust developed on plants of 79 accessions; no plants of M. indica PI 234674 exhibited signs of rust. A host range study of an isolate of U. striatus from alfalfa (4) included these 18 Melilotus species; 10 were hosts. Therefore, the reactions of Medicago accessions to isolate K-SC-R1 were evaluated. These included nine alfalfa germ plasm sources representing the diversity in North American alfalfas and the cvs. Saranac and Moapa 69, which are commonly used susceptible controls in alfalfa rust evaluations. No rust resulted on any entry of Medicago sativa subsp. sativa. A few scattered, small, open uredinia occurred on plants of Medicago sativa subsp. falcata (‘WISFAL’ PI 560533). Of 11 Medicago lupulina PI accessions inoculated, rust resulted only on a few plants of PI 269926. All M. alba plants included as susceptible controls in all tests became heavily rusted. The causal fungus fits U. striatus Schroet. as described by uredinologists who disregard urediniospore pore position in this species. For example, illustrations of U. striatus urediniospores by Savulescu (3) show scattered pores, however, descriptions of U. striatus Schroet. in North America (1,2) specify equatorial pores. To my knowledge, this is the first report of scattered pores in U. striatus urediniospores in the United States. However, an examination of urediniospores from heavily rusted alfalfa plants collected in 2001 near Manhattan, KS and from isolate KR1 (4) also revealed urediniospores with variously distributed pores. U. striatus was reported on M. alba in Florida in 2001.
References: (1) G. B Cummins. Rust Fungi on Legumes and Composites in North America. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978. (2) J. A. Parmelee. Can. J. Bot. 40:491, 1962. (3) T. Savulescu. Monografia Uredinalelor din Republica Populara Romana. II. Acad. Repub. Pop. Rom. 1953. (4) D. Z. Skinner and D. L. Stuteville. Plant Dis. 79:456, 1995.
