diseases of plants

Most names for plant diseases are descriptive of the physical appearance of the affected plant, e.g., blight (a rapid death of foliage, blossom, or the whole plant); leaf spot, fruit spot and scab, and stem canker (localized death of an organ); wilt (loss of turgor); gall (overgrowth of cells); witches'-broom (growth of abnormal shoots); stunting (underdevelopment); and leaf curl, mosaic, and yellows (resulting from chlorosis, or lack of chlorophyll). Many of these abnormalities are caused by different agents on different plants; when parasites are involved, each individual parasite usually invades only certain plant species and specific organs. Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight, rust, smut, certain mildews, and ergot are caused by various fungi (see fungal infection). Clubroot diseases are caused by slime molds, and water molds cause downy mildew (a disease of grapes), blue mold of tobacco, and sudden oak death (also known as ramorum leaf blight or ramorum dieback). Sudden oak death, caused by Phytophthora ramorum, was identified in 1995 in California, where it caused the deaths of many oaks. The disease, which affects many plant species besides oaks, has since been found in Oregon, and is also found in Europe; there, it was identified in 1993 in Germany, where it affected rhododendrons and viburnums. The water mold P. infestans was the cause of the late blight of potatoes that resulted in the Great Potato Famine in Ireland (1845–49). Both slime molds and water molds are now usually considered protists, rather than fungi. Most mosaic diseases and many other types of chlorosis are caused by viruses (see virus).

Plant diseases are more often classified by their symptoms than by the agent of disease, because the discovery of microscopic agents such as bacteria dates only from the 19th cent. (see Louis Pasteur). The Irish potato blight stimulated the development of plant pathology. The identification of tobacco mosaic virus in 1892 was the starting point of all modern knowledge about viruses.