Anthracnose affects inflorescences quality of ornamentals tropical plants and the fungi specie Colletotrichum gloeosporioides has been related with this disease based only on morphology. Therefore, the objectives of this research was to identify Colletotrichum isolates collected on anthurium (Anthurium andraeanum), torch ginger (Etlingera elatior) and heliconia (Heliconia spp.) plants by means of morphology and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and also verify the genetic variability using arbitrary-primed PCR (AP-PCR). All isolates were identified as C. gloeosporioides by conidium and appressorium size. A fragment of 450bp specific for C. gloeosporioides was amplified for all isolates analyzed, except for C 23 and C 35 isolates. The molecular characterization yielded three groups of isolates with different band patterns by using (GACAC)3, (GACA)4 and (CAG)5 AP-PCR. The employed methodologies were efficient to identify the C. gloeosporioides isolates collected on ornamental plants and there isn't relation between similarity of band patterns and geographic region or plant specie on the isolates analyzed.
Anthurium andraeanum; AP-PCR; Etlingera elatior; Heliconia spp.; ITS
