. Bacteria in relation to plant diseases. Bacteria; Plant diseases. 170 BACTERIA IN RELATION TO PLANT DISEASES. The Cuban disease has been described to me as causing plants to throw out numerous low suckers, and to make a dwarfed, worthless growth, one leaf after another showing the brown vascular bundles and drying out. It occupies considerable areas in some sections of Cuba, especially where bananas have been used as a shade plant for tobacco. RORER'S TRINIDAD DISEASE. In April 1911, James Birch Rorer published an important paper on "A bacterial disease of bananas and plantains," s
. Bacteria in relation to plant diseases. Bacteria; Plant diseases. 170 BACTERIA IN RELATION TO PLANT DISEASES. The Cuban disease has been described to me as causing plants to throw out numerous low suckers, and to make a dwarfed, worthless growth, one leaf after another showing the brown vascular bundles and drying out. It occupies considerable areas in some sections of Cuba, especially where bananas have been used as a shade plant for tobacco. RORER'S TRINIDAD DISEASE. In April 1911, James Birch Rorer published an important paper on "A bacterial disease of bananas and plantains," studied by him in Trinidad. This disease was first observed by him in 1909 in the Moko plantain, used largely as a shade for young cacao. An examination showed that the vascular bundles were filled with bacteria, which oozed out in white shiny drops from the cut sur- faces. Pure cultures of an organism which was proved to be the cause of the disease were obtained by the poured-plate method. Subsequently he found the disease in practically all parts of Trinidad, attacking not only the Moko but also the Creole and French plantains (Musa paradi- siaca) and the dwarf or Caven- dish banana (71/. ckinensis). The presence of the disease is as a rule first detected in the lower leaves. The leaf-blades droop a little more than usual and have a slightly yellowish tinge, symptoms very simi- lar to those brought about by drought. Soon, however, the petiole of one of the leaves gives way just at the base of the leaf-blade, and all the other leaves quickly break down in a simi- lar manner. Eventually the terminal leaf, too, bends over and the plant dies and rots down to the ground. [Plates 16, 17, 18, 19.] The bundles of the pseudo-stem and of the root-stock are discolored from pale yellow to dark brown or bluish black, and the vessels of such bundles are filled with bacteria. It is easy to trace such discolored bundles from leaves and pseudo-stems into the root-stock and thence into young su
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