Blights

Abstract

According to Webster, blight is “any disease or injury of plants resulting in withering, cessation of growth and death of parts, as in leaves, without rotting.” The term is somewhat loosely used by pathologists and gardeners to cover a wide variety of diseases, some of which may have rotting as a secondary symptom. In general, the chief characteristic of a blight is sudden and conspicuous leaf and fruit damage, in contradistinction to leaf spotting, where dead areas are definitely delimited, or to wilt due to a toxin or other disturbance in the vascular system. Fire blight, discussed under Bacterial Diseases, is a typical blight, with twigs and branches dying back but holding withered, dead foliage.