Species of Calonectria include important pathogens of numerous agronomic and forestry crops worldwide, and they are commonly distributed in soils of tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Previous research results indicated that species diversity of Calonectria in China is relatively high. Most Calonectria spp. reported and described from China were obtained from diseased Eucalyptus tissues or soils in Eucalyptus plantations established in tropical and subtropical areas in southern China. Recently, a number of Calonectria isolates were isolated from soils in a natural forest in the temperate region of central China. These isolates were identified by DNA sequence comparisons for the translation elongation factor 1-alpha (tef1), histone H3 (his3), calmodulin (cmdA) and β-tubulin (tub2) gene regions, combined with morphological characteristics. Two novel species of Calonectria were identified and described, and are named here as Calonectria lichi and Ca. montana, which reside in the Prolate Group and Sphaero-Naviculate Group, respectively. This study revealed that more species of Calonectria may occur in natural forests in central China than previously suspected.
