In the 1970s and 1980s, pine trees growing in various forestry plantations in South Africa’s Western Cape province began to die in patches. These trees succumbed to a mysterious root disease and the patches expanded gradually. Spontaneous regrowth of seedlings in the patches died dramatically.
As in many other true crime dramas, the finger was initially pointed at the most likely suspect: the root-infecting Phytophthora cinnamomi. Its name – plant (phyto) destroyer (phthora) – reveals its power to cause harm; the pathogen is known to cause disease in almost 5,000 different plants.
