Abstract
Asexual spores of Mycosphaerella nawae were profusely produced on PDA after a prolonged incubation at $25^{\circ}C$ for 90 days. When persimmon trees were artificially inoculated by the conidial suspension, typical symptoms of circular leaf spot of persimmon appeared on the leaves two month later. The imperfect stag of the fungus was identified as Ramularia sp. based on following morphological characteristics examined under a light microscope and a scanning electron microscope. Conidia were mostly ellipsoid, but occasionally cylindrical, elongated oval, taro, peanut or gourd shapes and measured as 12.2~32.6$\times$6.1~10.2 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$. erect, hyaline, colorless-light brown. Conidia were formed solitarily or in chains on a medium and infected leaves. Conidiophore was erect, hyaline, colorless-light brown. and the size was 20.4~102.0$\times$3.1~10.2 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$, respectively. In this paper, we firstly demonstratrated that asexual spores of M. nawae induced persimmon circular leaf spot in nature as well as sexual spores of the fungus. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the imperfect stage of the fungus plays an important role in nature for epidemics as secondary inoculum.
