Although there has been a notable summary of studies and compilation of pests and pathogens that cause damage on oak species
in California (47), the current study is one of the first comprehensive assessments for fungal species in aboveground symptomatic
woody tissues of coast live oak in California that also screened
frequently recovered fungi for pathogenicity. This study has identified a new fungal species, Cryptosporiopsis querciphila sp. nov. It
is one of four non-Botryosphaeriaceae fungi (with P. mortoniae, D.
verrucaeformis, and F. solani) herein demonstrated for the first
time (to our knowledge) to be both associated with naturally occurring cankers on coast live oak in southern California and pathogenic when inoculated into seedlings. Of the fungal species recovered from coast live oak in southern California in recent studies, F.
solanimust be added to the Diplodia spp. (Diplodia corticola and
D. agrifolia) (34,35) as an aggressive canker-causing pathogen.