In September 2020, samples of galled roots with rhizosphere soil were collected from declining Gentiana macrophylla in Yulong County, China. The pathogenic nematodes were identified by observing morphological characteristics of females, second-stage juveniles and perineal pattern, sequence alignments, and specific amplification of sequence characterized amplified region (SCAR). The results showed that the perineal pattern of this nematode was round or oval, the dorsal arch was moderately high or low, one side or both of the lateral field extended to form a wing shape, the tail region had punctations, and the morphological characteristics and morphometric values of second-stage juveniles and females were similar to those of Meloidogyne hapla. The ITS region fragment of this nematode were highly similar to those of M. hapla in NCBI database, with a similarity of over 99.35%. Using the SCAR specific primers, a specific band with an expected size of approximately 440 bp was amplified from this nematode. Morphological and molecular identification supports the nematode species found on Gentiana macrophylla as M. hapla. This is the first report of this regulated root-knot nematode on Gentiana macrophylla in China.
