Cephaleuros

Cephaleuros
Infestation of Cephaleuros virescens
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Clade: Viridiplantae
Division: Chlorophyta
Class: UTC clade
Order: Trentepohliales
Family: Trentepohliaceae
Genus: Cephaleuros
Kunze, 1827 ex Fries, 1832: 327[1][2]

Cephaleuros is a genus of parasitic thalloid green algae comprising approximately 14 species. Its common name is red rust. Specimens can reach around 10 mm in size. Dichotomous branches are formed. The alga is parasitic on some important economic plants of the tropics and subtropics such as tea, coffee, mango and guava causing damage limited to the area of algal growth on leaves (algal leaf spot), or killing new shoots, or disfiguring fruit.[3] Spores germinate on plants in the rainy season.[4] Members of the genera may also grow with a fungus to form a lichen that does not damage the plants.[3] There are 17 species in the genus, 13 of which grow between the cuticle and epidermis of infected plants while the remaining four grow intercellularly; interceullular species cause more damage to host plants.[4]

  1. ^ Kunze, O. 1827. In: Weigelt, Christoph. Surinam Exsic.
  2. ^ Fries, E.[M.] (1832). Systema mycologicum: sistens fungorum ordines, genera et species, huc usque cognitas, quas ad normam methodi naturalis determinavit / disposuit atque descripsit. Volumen III et ultimum. pp. [261]-524, [1]-202 p. ["Index alphabeticus generum, ..."]. Grypiswaldae: Sumptibus Entestii Mauritii, [1].
  3. ^ a b Paracer, Surindar; Ahmadjian, Vernon (2000). Symbiosis: An Introduction to Biological Associations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-19-511807-0.
  4. ^ a b The Trentepohliales (Ulvophyceae, Chlorophyta): An Unusual Algal Order and its Novel Plant Pathogen—Cephaleuros