Abstract
Banana leaf spots were collected from the Pacific and Central and South America. Mycosphaerella musicola was present in Central and South America except in Honduras where M. Fijiensis var. difformis was also present. This variety was found in Fiji, Tonga, Western Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue, Solomon Islands, Papua- New Guinea and Taiwan. M. Fijiensis alone was present in Hawaii and the Philippines. In the Pacific, M. musicola was observed in a collection from near Bogor, Java and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Single ascospore cultures showed that Mycosphaerella fijiensis and M .fijiensis var. diffornis formed a single indistinguishable cultural group whereas M. musicola formed a separate, distinct group. Cultural variation among ingle ascopore isolates was much greater in the M. Fijiensis than in the M. musicola group. The M. musicola group produced two main types of culture on Mycophyl agar: a dark grey or grey-brown colony with crenate edge (DGB) and a pale grey and pink colony (PGP). The DGB cultures produced more conidia when first isolated, and with time became unstable yielding PGP cultures.
