Abstract
AMERICAN elrn trees in the Ohio valley are subject to a new and deadly virus disease which is briefly described in a mail report from Science Service, Washington (Feb. 4, 1939). Leaves upon infected trees first shrivel and become brittle, then the roots and inner bark of the trunk rot away, and the tree dies within a few months. This is the first known instance where a virus disease has caused a fatal epidemic among trees. The outbreak appears to be even more serious than that of the so-called Dutch elm disease which has decimated elm trees in the neighbourhood of New York. It is reported that more than 1,000 out of about 1,800 elms in one particular locality have been killed by the virus during three years. Means of dissemination of the pathogene have not yet been found, but the United States Division of Forest Pathology is taking energetic measures to trace the extent of the infection, and to limit it to one district, if possible.
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A Virus Disease of the Elm. Nature 143, 406 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/143406c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/143406c0