Candida flosculorum sp. nov. and Candida floris sp. nov., two yeast species associated with tropical flowers

1 Departamento de Microbiologia, ICB, C. P. 486, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG 31270-901, Brazil 2 Centro de Estudos de Insetos Sociais e Departamento de Bioquímica e Microbiologia, Universidade Estadual Paulista – UNESP, C.P. 199, Rio Claro, SP 13506-900, Brazil 3 Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada 4 Departamento de Biologia Geral, ICB, C. P. 486, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG 31270-901, Brazil Correspondence Carlos A. Rosa carlrosa{at}icb.ufmg.br Two ascomycetous yeast species, Candida flosculorum sp. nov. and Candida floris sp. nov., were isolated from tropical flowers and their associated insects. C. flosculorum was isolated from flower bracts of Heliconia velloziana and Heliconia episcopalis (Heliconiaceae) collected from two Atlantic rain forest sites in Brazil. C. floris was isolated from flowers of Ipomoea sp. (Convolvulaceae) growing on the banks of the river Paraguai in the pantanal ecosystem in Brazil and from an adult of the stingless bee Trigona sp. and a flower of Merremia quinquefolia (Convolvulaceae) in Costa Rica. C. flosculorum belongs to the Metschnikowiaceae clade and C. floris belongs to the Starmerella clade. The type strain of C. flosculorum is UFMG-JL13 T (=CBS 10566 T =NRRL Y-48258 T ) and the type strain of C. floris is UWO(PS) 00-226.2 T (=CBS 10593 T =NRRL Y-48255 T ). The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the gene sequences of the D1/D2 domain of the 26S rDNA of strains UWO(PS) 00-226.2 T and UFMG-JL13 T are AF313353 and EF137918 , respectively.