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Gavan P.L. Watson

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When is a White Trillium not?

May 1, 2017 by Gavan Leave a Comment

A post shared by Gavan Watson (@gavanwatson) on Apr 30, 2017 at 5:56am PDT

Here’s a bit of a natural history mystery that I found yesterday: this green flower in a bed of White Trilliums (Trillium grandiflorum); something that I had never seen before.

The few initial web references I found suggested this is caused by a bacterium or a virus; further detective work unearthed a 46-year old paper (Hooper, Case & Myers, 1971) that suggests this greening is caused by “mycoplasma organisms”—a kind of bacteria and will cause the plant (eventually) to die.

It sounds like in the ensuing 40+ years since Hooper, Case & Myers published their (3 page!) paper, these “mycoplasma organisms” pathogens have come to be called phytoplasma—see Bertaccini et al., (1999), a paper that references Hooper, Case & Myers (1971).

And with that little discovery, a new world opens: a 2016 paper by Arocha-Rosete et al. that links the disease to a specific strain of phytoplasm: Candidatus Phytoplasma pruni, closely related (like 99% similar) to a phytoplasm called Milkweed yellows phytoplasma.

So…mystery solved?

Because I’m a geek, here’s the reference to the 1971 article: Hooper, G. R., Case, F. W. and Myers, R. 1971. Mycoplasma-like bodies associated with a flower greening disorder of a wild flower, Trillium grandflorium. Plant Disease Reporter, 55: 1108–1110.

Here are the rest of the references I unearthed:

Bertaccini, A., Fránová, J., Paltrinieri, S. et al. European Journal of Plant Pathology (1999) 105: 487. doi:10.1023/A:1008745206438

Arocha-Rosete Y, Morales-Lizcano NP, Hasan A, Yoshioka K, Moeder W, Michelutti R, Satta E, Bertaccini A, Scott J (2016) First report of the identification of a ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma pruni’-related strain in Trillium species in Canada. New Disease Reports 34, 19. doi: 10.5197/j.2044-0588.2016.034.019

View the image on Instagram

Posted in: instrgram, Natural History, Plants Tagged: ifttt, Instagram, Natural History, ontario, photograph, phytoplasma, research, spring, spring ephemeral, wildflower

About me

Gavan Watson headshot Work life? Director, Centre for Innovation in Teaching and Learning & Associate Vice President, Teaching and Learning at Memorial University with a Ph.D. in environmental education. Home life? Father, naturalist, photographer, husband, philosopher, & member of a hybrid human-dog pack.

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