VIEW ARTICLE

Flexuous Rods and Vesicles in Leaf and Petiole Phloem of Little-Cherry Diseased Prunus spp.. J. Raine, Research Station, Agriculture Canada, 6660 N.W. Marine Drive, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1X2; M. Weintraub(2), and Bea Schroeder(3). (2)(3)Research Station, Agriculture Canada, 6660 N.W. Marine Drive, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1X2. Phytopathology 65:1181-1186. Accepted for publication 21 May 1975. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-65-1181.

Two abnormal structures in phloem parenchyma and companion cells of leaf midribs and petioles were consistently correlated with little-cherry disease of sweet cherry and oriental flowering cherry. These structures were elongated, flexuous rods (about 12.0-12.5 nm in diameter, usually arranged in large aggregates) and small vesicles (about 75 nm in diameter) mostly spherical or ellipsoid, bounded by a double membrane, and containing fibrous strands radiating from an electron-dense center. The vesicles were often intermingled with the flexuous rods, and were characteristically attached to the inner surfaces of membranes which lined large vacuoles in the cytoplasm.