Taphrina padi

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Pocket plum gall
Taphrina padi galls on Bird Cherry.JPG
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Fungi
Division: Ascomycota
Class: Taphrinomycetes
Order: Taphrinales
Family: Taphrinaceae
Genus: Taphrina
Species:
T. padi
Binomial name
Taphrina padi
(Jacz.) Mix (1947)
Synonyms

Taphrina pruni var. padiJacz. (1926)

Taphrina padi is a fungal plant pathogen that induces the form of pocket plum gall that occurs on bird cherry ( Prunus padus ). The gall is a chemically induced distortion of the fruits, which are swollen, hollow, curved and greatly elongated, [1] without a seed or stone, but retaining the style. [2] The twigs on infected plants may also be deformed with small strap-shaped leaves. [1]

Contents

Hosts

Taphrina padi, a 'tongue fungus', produces a distinctive, elongated, tongue-like growth on bird cherry, [3] similar to other closely related species such as Taphrina alni on ader (Alnus glutinosa) and Taphrina pruni on blackthorn (Prunus spinosa). [1] The growth is the distorted fruit and not the fungus itself. [4]

Distribution

The gall is widely distributed, and may be under recorded in the United Kingdom, but it is found throughout the temperate Northern Hemisphere. [5] T. padi has been recorded in India.

Structure and appearance

Fruits

Pocket plum galls on bird cherry at Dalgarven Mill in Ayrshire, Scotland Bird Cherry fruits.JPG
Pocket plum galls on bird cherry at Dalgarven Mill in Ayrshire, Scotland
Distorted stem on bird cherry, possibly caused by T.padi Taphrina padi induced malformation on Prunus padus stem.JPG
Distorted stem on bird cherry, possibly caused by T.padi
Corrugated pocket plums with ascospore bloom Taphrina padi with ascospores.JPG
Corrugated pocket plums with ascospore bloom

These galls are usually known as 'pocket plums', however alternatives are 'starved plums'; 'bladder bullace; and 'mock plums'. The gall appears on the developing fruit, rendering it inedible and resulting in an elongated, curved, hollow, stone-less gall, usually light green in colour at first; turning brown as the gall develops. In T. padi an identification characteristic is that the style persists at the tip of the gall.

The surface of the gall eventually becomes corrugate and coated with the fungus, showing as a white bloom of ascospore producing hyphae. The totally inedible fruits shrivel and most fall. [6]

Stems

Stems bearing deformed fruit may also thicken and grow with a deformation. The leaves are smaller and strap-like and shoots may be swollen, pale yellow and tinged with red. [1] The fungus may also cause dense clusters of live and dead twig, called "witches' brooms". Some authors suggest these are caused by the very similar Taphrina insititia. [6]

Life cycle

The airborne spores released from the whitish 'bloom' on the fruit are thought to settle in the host's bark and bud scales, growing at first without causing obvious signs, but in the spring the fungus invades the plant tissues, causing swollen and deformed shoots. The fungus remains in these as a mycelium. The gall inducing fungus then grows into the flowers and the developing fruit. The cycle then repeats itself. [6]

The fungus infects the ovaries causing a pseudo-pollination and an enhanced cell division, resulting in the infested fruit being larger than the healthy one. [4]

Infestations of galls

Bird cherry (Prunus padus) with developing pocket plum galls Taphrina pruni in Prunus padus.jpg
Bird cherry (Prunus padus) with developing pocket plum galls
Detail of the closely related T. pruni structure Nsr-slika-338.png
Detail of the closely related T. pruni structure

As a fungus, cool and wet weather conditions promote the germination of spores, while warm and dry weather results in infection rarely taking place. [4]

Removing and destroying the galls may help to reduce the infestation. Colonisation can become extensive and eradication very difficult. The disease can to some degree be controlled by carefully removing infected branches, witches' brooms and fruit before the infective air-borne spores are produced. [6]

Applications of copper-containing fungicides have a degree of control over the tongue-fungi.

Related Research Articles

<i>Prunus padus</i> Species of flowering plant in the rose family Rosaceae

Prunus padus, known as bird cherry, hackberry, hagberry, or Mayday tree, is a flowering plant in the rose family. It is a species of cherry, a deciduous small tree or large shrub up to 16 metres (52 ft) tall. It is the type species of the subgenus Padus, which have flowers in racemes. It is native to northern Europe and northern and northeast Asia, and is grown as an ornamental in North America.

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<i>Monilinia fructicola</i> Species of fungus

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<i>Taphrina</i> Genus of fungi

Taphrina is a fungal genus within the Ascomycota that causes leaf and catkin curl diseases and witch's brooms of certain flowering plants. One of the more commonly observed species causes peach leaf curl. Taphrina typically grow as yeasts during one phase of their life cycles, then infect plant tissues in which typical hyphae are formed, and ultimately they form a naked layer of asci on the deformed, often brightly pigmented surfaces of their hosts. No discrete fruit body is formed outside of the gall-like or blister-like tissues of the hosts. The asci form a layer lacking paraphyses, and they lack croziers. The ascospores frequently bud into multiple yeast cells within the asci. Phylogenetically, Taphrina is a member of a basal group within the Ascomycota, and type genus for the subphylum Taphrinomycotina, the class Taphrinomycetes, and order Taphrinales.

<i>Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae</i> Species of fungus

Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae is a plant pathogen that causes cedar-apple rust. In virtually any location where apples or crabapples (Malus) and eastern red cedar coexist, cedar apple rust can be a destructive or disfiguring disease on both the apples and cedars. Apples, crabapples, and eastern red cedar are the most common hosts for this disease. Similar diseases can be found on quince and hawthorn and many species of juniper can substitute for the eastern red cedars.

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<i>Podosphaera leucotricha</i> Species of fungus

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<i>Taphrina deformans</i> Species of fungus

Taphrina deformans is a fungus and plant pathogen, and a causal agent[s] of peach leaf curl. Peach trees infected with T. deformans will experience leaf puckering and distortion, acquiring a characteristic downward and inward curl. Leaves will also undergo chlorosis, turning a pale green or yellow, and later show a red or purple tint. Fruit can either drop prematurely or show surface distortions. Severe infection can also produce lesions on the flowers. The host tree will experience defoliation if the leaves are badly diseased. If a seedling is severely infected, it may die. Almond trees display similar symptoms.

<i>Dibotryon morbosum</i> Species of fungus

Dibotryon morbosum or Apiosporina morbosa is a plant pathogen, which is the causal agent of black knot. It affects members of the Prunus genus such as; cherry, plum, apricot, and chokecherry trees in North America. The disease produces rough, black growths that encircle and kill the infested parts, and provide habitat for insects.

<i>Andricus foecundatrix</i> Species of wasp

Andricus foecundatrix is a parthenogenetic gall wasp which lays a single egg within a leaf bud, using its ovipositor, to produce a gall known as an oak artichoke gall, oak hop gall, larch-cone gall or hop strobile The gall develops as a chemically induced distortion of leaf axillary or terminal buds on pedunculate oak or sessile oak trees. The larva lives inside a smaller hard casing inside the artichoke and this is released in autumn. The asexual wasp emerges in spring and lays her eggs in the oak catkins. These develop into small oval galls which produce the sexual generation of wasps. A yew artichoke gall caused by the fly Taxomyia taxi also exists, but is unrelated to the oak-borne species. Previous names or synonyms for the species A. fecundator are A. fecundatrix, A. pilosus, A. foecundatrix, A. gemmarum, A. gemmae, A. gemmaequercus, A. gemmaecinaraeformis and A. quercusgemmae.

<i>Taphrina alni</i> Species of fungus

Taphrina alni is a fungal plant pathogen that causes alder tongue gall, a chemically induced distortion of female alder catkins.

<i>Taphrina pruni</i> Species of fungus

Taphrina pruni is a fungal plant pathogen of blackthorn that causes the pocket or bladder plum gall, a chemically induced distortion of the fruit (sloes), producing swollen on one side, otherwise deformed and flattened fruit gall without a stone. The twigs on infected plants may also be deformed with small strap-shaped leaves.

<i>Protomyces macrosporus</i> Species of fungus

Protomyces macrosporus is an ascomycete fungus that forms galls on Aegopodium podagraria, Anthriscus sylvestris, Angelica sylvestris, Daucus carota and some other members of the family Umbelliferae or Apiaceae, commonly known as umbellifers. Fourteen genera within the Asteraceae are also galled by P. macrosporus. The description of the genus was based on Protomyces macrosporus as the type genus for the family Protomycetaceae.

<i>Dasineura crataegi</i> Species of fly

Dasineura crataegi, the hawthorn button-top gall-midge, is a dipteran gall-midge. It causes the hawthorn button-top gall, which develops in the terminal shoots of common hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna Jacq., Midland hawthorn C laevigata (Poir.) DC and their hybrid, C × media Bechst. Synonyms are Perrisia crataegi and Cecidomyia crataegi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pineapple gall adelgid</span> Species of true bug

The pineapple gall adelgid is a species of conifer-feeding insect that forms pineapple-shaped plant galls on its host species, commonly Norway and Sitka spruce. The adelgids are pear-shaped, soft-bodied green insects with long antennae, closely related to the aphid. Adelges lays up to one hundred eggs at a time, one on each needle. Adelges abietis is one of the most common species; synonyms are A. gallarum-abietis, Chermes abietis and Sacciphantes abietis.

<i>Taphrina wiesneri</i> Species of fungus

Taphrina wiesneri is a plant pathogen causing witch's broom, or plant gall formations, on cherry trees. It is an important pest species of the ornamental cherry Cerasus X yedoensis in Japan.

<i>Phyllocoptes eupadi</i> Species of mite

Phyllocoptes eupadi is a mite that chemically induces a pouch gall to develop as a sub-spherical distortion rising up from the upper surface of the lamina of leaves of blackthorn shrubs Prunus padus, Prunus spinosa and other Prunus species. Synonyms are Phytoptus padi Nalepa, 1890 and "Eriophyes padi ", non Eriophyes padi Domes, 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shot hole disease</span> Fungal disease of plants

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Prunus cornuta, the Himalayan bird cherry, is a species of bird cherry native to the foothills of the Himalayas, including China and the countries of the Indian subcontinent. A medium-sized tree, it can reach 18 m. It is used for a rootstock for sweet cherries in India. Its specific epithet references the "horned" deformation of the fruit seen when a tree is afflicted with the fungal disease pocket plum gall, ascribed to the species Taphrina padi.

<i>Taphrina betulina</i> Species of fungus

Taphrina betulina is a fungal plant pathogen that causes the gall, witches broom, which is a chemical infection of birch buds or the developing shoots, leading to a proliferation of growth. It was first described by Emil Rostrup in 1883 and is found in Europe, New Zealand and North America.

References

Notes
Maturing pocket plum galls Taphrina padi maturing. Dalgarven, Scotland..JPG
Maturing pocket plum galls
Sources
  1. Cannon, P.F., Hawksworth, D.L., and Sherwood-Pike, M.A. (1985). The British Ascomycotina. An Annotated Checklist. Commonwealth Mycological Institute, Kew, Surrey, England, 302 pages.
  2. Darlington, Arnold (1975). The Pocket Encyclopaedia of Plant Galls in Colour. Poole : Blandford Press. ISBN   0-7137-0748-8.
  3. Dennis, R.W.G. (1978). British Ascomycetes. J. Cramer, Vaduz, 585 pages.
  4. Mix, A.J. (1949). A monograph of the genus Taphrina. Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull. 33: 3-167.
  5. Redfern, Margaret & Shirley, Peter (2002). British Plant Galls. Identification of galls on plants & fungi. AIDGAP. Shrewsbury : Field Studies Council. ISBN   1-85153-214-5.
  6. Stubbs, F. B. Edit. (1986). Provisional Keys to British Plant Galls. Pub. Brit Plant Gall Soc. ISBN   0-9511582-0-1.