Considering the importance of cultivating tropical flowers in the national and international context, a survey of the occurrence of fungi and nematodes associated with tropical flowers was conducted in crop areas in São Luís - Maranhão State, Brazil. Periodic visits were made, at bimonthly intervals, to places where the main activity was tropical flower cultivation, for the monitoring and collection of plant parts or plants of the species: Heliconia spp., Alpinia purpurata and Etlingera elatior with symptoms typical of diseases. Pathogen city test was also conducted for the main pathogenic fungi detected as causal agents of leaf spots. Results confirmed the existence of fungi associated with tropical flower cultivation in São Luís, especially Curvularia eragrostidis (78%), Pestalotiopsis sp. (68%) and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides (47%) as causal agents of leaf spots in species of the family Heliconiaceae, and Curvularia eragrostidis (75%) and Pestalotiopsis sp. (37%) in species of the family Zingiberaceae. Eight nematode genera were recorded, both in the family Heliconiaceae and in the family Zingiberaceae, especially the genus Meloidogyne.
Heliconiaceae; Zingiberaceae; Flower diseases
