BENSINGTONIA-MUSAE SP-NOV ISOLATED FROM A DEAD LEAF OF MUSA-PARADISIACA AND ITS PHYLOGENETIC RELATIONSHIP AMONG BASIDIOMYCETOUS YEASTS

A new species of ballistoconidium-forming yeast, Bensingtonia musae, w as isolated from a dead leaf of Musa paradisiaca collected in the sout heast seacoast of Bangkok, Thailand. B. musae showed physiological and biochemical characteristics similar to B. ingoldii and B. intermedia. DNA-DNA reassociation experiments, however, showed that it was distin ct from these two species. B. musae is easily distinguished from B. in goldii by the assimilation of sucrose, cellobiose, lactose, melezitose , soluble starch and nitrate, and from B. intermedia by the assimilati on of cellobiose, L-arabinose, erythritol and salicin, and the require ment of p-aminobenzoic acid and pyridoxine. In the phylogenetic tree c onstructed based on small subunit rRNA gene sequences, B. musae was lo cated at a cluster which was composed of B. ciliata, the type species of the genus, B. ingoldii, B. miscanthi, B. naganoensis, B. phylladus, B. subrosea and B. yuccicola. Among these species, B. musae was the m ost closely related to B. ingoldii.