Within a few days of learning about witches’ brooms, I spotted another possible instance. It’s like learning a new word and then seeing it in the next day’s New York Times.
I’ll repeat wikipedia’s definition of the condition because I can’t do any better:
A Witch’s broom is a disease or deformity in a woody plant, typically a tree, where the natural structure of the plant is changed. A dense mass of shoots grows from a single point, with the resulting structure resembling a broom or a bird’s nest.
Here’s what I saw the other day in my morning walk with the dogs:
See anything unusual in the right side of that tree?
Here’s a closer view, with the possible witches’ broom circled in red:
And closer still. First, the left (normal) side of the tree, and then the right (abnormal) side:
The tree is a Tabebuia rosea, called a pink oak (roble rosa, in Spanish) or, in Costa Rica, a savanna oak, because of the strength of its wood. It loses its leaves before it blooms, which around here is in the late dry season, in March, although it blooms from January through June throughout Panama (Carrasquilla). The fruits, which are pods, develop soon after, as the leaves are returning.
It happens that I have some pictures of the tree in earlier years. In March 2007, I caught it in bloom (with an older camera). The pink flowers are mostly on the lower left branches. Click on the image for a better view.
The leaves have already begun to return, and if the resolution were good enough, we’d see the pods developing as well.
In March of the following year, 2008, there were fewer flowers and leaves in the tree than there had been in 2007. I have no image for 2009, but if you look at 2007, 2008 (where pods are clearly seen) and 2010 consecutively, the tree seems in worse and worse condition as the years go by.
Witches’ broom is a disease that may be caused by many different kinds of organisms, to quote wikipedia again,
…such as fungi, insects, mistletoe, dwarf mistletoes, mites, nematodes, phytoplasmas and viruses.
Witches’ broom is a serious pest, unfortunately, of the cocoa plant, and at times has threatened the entire industry.
One series of photographs of a tree showing a worsening condition, and also showing the development of an apparent witches’ broom condition, is not proof that witches’ broom is killing this tree. It may be diseased for other reasons or it may be dying of old age. But the correlation is suggestive.
P.S. Is it “witches’ broom” (plural witches) or “witch’s broom” (singular witch)? I’ve seen it both ways throughout the internet. Normally I would go with the usage in wikipedia, but this time I’m following the usage in the journal Mycologia, which covers the investigation of fungi and lichen. Many instances of witches’ broom are caused by fungi and have been reported upon in the journal. So plural witches it is for me.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in the plural form of the name just because it was used as such in a botanical journal – many scientists are themselves surprisingly unpedantic. Personally, I think the singular form is more correct, although I say that from absolutely no position of authority
regards–ted
Well, Ted, the singular form certainly fits better with “broom” than does the plural, doesn’t it? I suppose one could say, “That broom there belongs to the witches,” and it’s kind of fun to imagine witches sharing a broom. Whose turn is it tonight to ride the broom?
Nice, Mary! I’ve been following your trail of witch’s broom to arrive here. I’m with Ted, and you, in that the singular, witch and broom, seem more appropriate. (But I had to check back to see how I’d written it in the Feb BGR, just in case I’m contradicting myself.)
When I saw the flowers in your first picture of the critter, I suspected witch’s broom. We have a tree here that is recognizable from a distance mainly because of its almost-characteristic witch’s broom! You’ve given me the idea I ought to post on it again soon. (Original, where I seem to have slipped in a plural witch, is at bee heaven.)
I bet, for witches, it’s “a broom in every closet”– hard to imagine them sharing their primary mode of transportation!
Thanks for your observations, Sally. That is a wicked witch’s broom infestation you have pictured there at bee heaven! I’m afraid that one of my Allophylous psilospermus trees now has it bad, too. I should probably take a new picture and post an update. It makes me sad to see because I do like the tree very much.
I see I was inconsistent on singular-plural for those broom(s) within my own post on the Allophylous instance! Singular as a label on one of the photos, plural in the text. Oh, well. Maybe I’ll join you and Ted (and wikipedia) and just stick with the singular, regardless of what Mycologia or other journals use.