Category: Plants, Algae, & Fungi

Beautiful Disease

Isidora Silva-Valderrama

Award winner

Everything looks green at the beginning of the summer, but as the season goes on, the symptoms of this devastating fungal disease in grapevines are beautifully shown. While slowly killing the plant by severely damaging functional tissues, the fungi Phaeomoniella chlamydospora, Phaeoacremonium minimum and species of the Botryosphaeria family (among others), produce striking tiger-stipe leaves. The late externalization of what was happening uncontrollably and silently in the interior.