Morphological and Molecular Confirmation of Puccinia antirrhini on Cultivated Antirrhinum majus in Uzbekistan, With Notes on Global Occurrence Documentation

Puccinia antirrhini is a rust fungus associated with Antirrhinum species and is recognized as a significant pathogen of ornamental snapdragon plantings. Although this species has been reported from various regions globally, its presence in Uzbekistan has not previously been substantiated by voucher‐based or molecular evidence. In the present study, P. antirrhini was confirmed in cultivated Antirrhinum majus in Uzbekistan using an integrative approach that incorporated host association, symptomatology, micromorphology, voucher deposition, and ribosomal DNA sequence analysis. Infected plants displayed characteristic rust symptoms, including uredinial and telial sori on affected tissues. Microscopic analysis identified uredinial and telial structures consistent with published descriptions of P. antirrhini , and LSU sequence data corroborated the placement of the specimen within the P. antirrhini lineage. To contextualize this finding, a Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)‐mediated Darwin Core Archive dataset was analyzed, yielding 2036 occurrence records of P. antirrhini . The dataset was predominantly composed of preserved specimens (78.1%) and indicated that documented and digitized records are primarily concentrated in Europe and North America. This study provides voucher‐supported, sequence‐verified confirmation of P. antirrhini in Uzbekistan, establishing a traceable reference for future taxonomic, biogeographic, and host‐association research on rust fungi in Central Asia. The GBIF‐derived summary is interpreted as a dataset for documentation rather than as evidence of biological abundance or infection frequency.