, the Causal Agent of a New Needle Blight Disease on .

, an endangered and native coniferous tree species in China, has considerable timber and horticulture value. However, little is known about needle diseases in . A needle blight of has been observed in Hebei Province, China. inoculated with mycelial plugs of fungal isolates presented symptoms similar to those observed under field conditions. Ten virulent fungal isolates were identified as a small-spored species based on morphological observations. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian phylogenetic analyses carried out with multilocus sequence typing of eight regions (SSU, LSU, ITS, , , , , OPA10-2) assigned the pathogen to . This is the first report of causing needle blight on in China.