Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Two groups of bacteria with differing characteristics are currently referred to as Erwinia carnegieana Standring 1942. However, neither group fits the original description for this bacterium. Strain NCPPB 439T (= ATCC 13452 = ATCC 33259T = ICPB EC-1 = ICPB EC-251 = PDDCC 5701T) was designated as the cotype strain for E. carnegieana and as the type strain for Pectobacterium carnegieana (Standring 1942) Brenner, Steigerwalt, Miklos and Fanning 1973 in the 1980 Approved Lists. However, all of these isolates have the characteristics of Klebsiella pneumoniae (Schroeter 1886) Trevisan 1887. No extant culture is known with the characteristics described for E. carnegieana. More recent strains isolated by us from rotting cacti are in various international collections (NCPPB 671, NCPPB 672, ICPB EC-186 = PDDCC 1551, ICPB EC-187 = PDDCC 1381, ICPB EC-188, ICPB EC-189, ICPB EC-190 = PDDCC 1382, ICPB EC-191, ICPB EC-221, ICPB EC-222, ICPB EC-223). These isolates are similar to Erwinia carotovora (Jones 1901) Bergey, Harrison, Breed, Hammer and Huntoon 1923. Because of the lack of any culture of the originally described E. carnegieana, the fact that the cotype culture is a different organism, and the fact that repeated attempts to isolate the organism described as E. carnegieana from rots typical for the described disease have failed, we request an opinion that the name E. carnegieana be rejected as nomen dubium.
Alcorn et al. (Fri,) studied this question.