IV 
CLOVES 
175 
usually straight and not very long, and not choked up 
with excreta, as in the tunnels of longicorn beetles and 
such insects, or some insecticide might be injected into 
the burrows, but this is less easy. 
Small boughs bored may be cut off. The adult 
insect has never been identified, but is undoubtedly 
some species of moth. 
In Zanzibar, a leaf- eating caterpillar is recorded, 
which attacks the trees in the dry weather and denudes 
the tree of its leaves. The tree, however, is said to 
recover during the rains. The termites are also said to 
attack the roots occasionally [Consular Report, 1892, 
p. 266). No further details, however, are given. 
I have no record of termites attacking clove trees in 
the East Indies. A case of the sudden death of a 
clove tree from termites once referred to me proved to 
have been due to the attacks of a root fungus, the 
termites having merely commenced to destroy the 
already dead parts of the tree. 
Blights. — I find a species of Mytilaspis attacking 
the stems and the leaves of young plants, later causing 
distortion of them. It is a small, white, mussel- 
shaped coccid, which attacks many plants, especially 
seedlings, and is described elsewhere in this work. 
Root Fungus. — In the Botanic Gardens in Malacca, 
in 1894, a fine young clove tree suddenly died when just 
coming into fruit. This was supposed to be due to the 
attacks of termites, as there was a great mass of galleries 
thrown up at the base of the tree, but on digging away 
the soil it was discovered that the whole of the bark 
above the roots was black and putrid, and some of the 
larger roots covered with a white mildew. The tree 
must have been attacked some time previously by this 
fungus, only dying when the destruction was absolutely 
complete. This fungus was never identified. It prob- 
ably spread underground, as these parasites often do, 
as a number of trees were destroyed. 
In the case of a root-fungus like this appearing on 
an estate, the trees should be at once destroyed and 
