Abstract
The genus Alternaria contains a large number of diverse species which include many phytopathogens, endophytes and saprobes, as well as environmental species. An Alternaria species was isolated from dead wood of unknown plant collected from the Al Jabal al-Akhdar Mountain in Oman. This species did not have a conclusive match to any known Alternaria in the GenBank database using BLAST searchers based on ITS gene sequences. The analysis of a sequence dataset based on SSU, LSU, ITS, GPDH, TEF and RPB2 genes of the newly discovered species showed that it represented a new section in Altenraria. A detailed morphological comparison of both sexual and asexual morphs support the conclusions based on the sequence data. Therefore, we introduce a new Alternaria section Omanenses and a new species, Alternaria omanensis.