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Summary: November 2008 www.aznps.org The Plant Press ARIZONA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY 13
Introduction to fungal endophytes
When first introduced in 1866, "endophyte" was used broadly
to refer to any organism found within tissues of living plants.
Subsequent re-definitions led to confusion regarding the
meaning of the term, but modern mycologists generally agree
that endophytes are organisms that colonize internal plant
tissues without causing apparent harm to their host.
Research in my group (http://www.endophytes.org) focuses
on foliar fungal endophytes those endophytes that occur
inside healthy leaves and other photosynthetic organs. The
vast majority of foliar endophytes (hereafter, endophytes) are
members of the Ascomycota, the most diverse phylum of
fungi.
Endophytes have been recovered from plants in hot deserts,
Arctic tundra, mangroves, temperate and tropical forests,
grasslands and savannas, and croplands. They are known
from mosses and other nonvascular plants, ferns and other
seedless plants, conifers, and flowering plants. Every plant
species examined to date is host to at least one endophytic
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