Disease in plantsWard, H. Marshall (Harry Marshall)
Science
Disease in plants
Ward, H. Marshall (Harry Marshall)
Plant diseases
Cylindrical stem swellings are caused by _Calyptospora_: they are due to
the hypertrophy of the cortex of Bilberry stems permeated by the
hyphae. _Epichloë_, which clothes the sheaths and halms of grasses with
its stroma, at first snowy white and later ochre-yellow as the
perithecia form, is another example.
The cylindrical layer of eggs of a moth such as _Bombyx_ on a twig must
not be confounded with these cases.
_Frost-blisters_ are pustule-like uprisings of the cortex, where the
living tissues below have formed a callus-like cushion into the cavity
beneath the dead outer parts of the cortex which were killed by the
frost; they occur on the stems of young Apples, Pears, etc.
_Galls_ in the narrower sense are tissue outgrowths usually involving
deeper cell-layers. They are so varied and numerous that classification
is difficult. For symptomatic purposes we may divide them as follows:
_Leaf-galls._--A well-marked type is that of the _pocket-galls_ or
_bladders_ in which the whole thickness of the leaf is as it were pushed
up like a glove-finger at one spot, so that if the upper surface of the
leaf forms the outside of the gall the lower surface is its lining. Such
galls are common on Limes (_Phytoptus_), _Glechoma_ (_Cecidomyia_), Elms
(_Tetraneura_), etc. Similar localised extension of the leaf surface,
compelling it to rise up like a pocket, are caused by fungi--_e.g._
_Taphrina_ on Poplars, _Exoascus_ on Birches, etc., _Exobasidium_ on
Bilberries, Rhododendrons, etc.
Another type is that of the _Gall-apple_, so well known on Oaks, where
the spherical swelling is solid--except for the inner cavity containing
the eggs--_Neurotus_, _Cynips_, _Hormomyia_, etc. These are comparable
in general characters to the nodules on roots.
Fungus galls with similar external features when young are found on
Maize (_Ustilago Maydis_), and betray their nature by the black powdery
spores as they mature.
Bud galls on Willows are due to _Cecidomyia_, which causes several
internodes to swell out into a greenish barrel-shaped mass, from which
leaves may spring.
Small irregular excrescences on Willow stems are referred to
_Phytoptus_, and another species of the same insect induces similar
swellings on Pines which are not surcharged with resin.
_American Blight_, or Woolly Aphis, on Apples especially, causes the
tumour-like swellings covered with sticky white fluff, which is a waxy
excretion of the insect. Galls on _Pilea_, in Java, are due to an
Alga--_Phytophysa_.
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