2 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXIII, No. x 
was not isolated, it was found in mixed culture to belong to this genus. 
In November of the same year a similar specimen was received from 
Amelia Court House, Va. 
These several occurrences of the trouble in 1917 led to an examination 
of the card records of diseased rhubarb specimens and of correspondence 
received by the Office of Cotton, Truck, and Forage Crop Disease Investi¬ 
gations in previous years. Many cards were found upon which the 
descriptions recorded compared favorably with that of the disease 
caused by this Phytophthora. On March 24, 1913, a specimen was 
received from Bowling Green, Ky., which consisted of “decay of under¬ 
ground stems.” On January 24, 1914, a specimen of what was probably 
forced rhubarb was received from Parkersburg, W. Va. It was called a 
“crown rot” and described as follows: 
Tissue at base of leaves soft and decayed, decay extending into root; bacteria abund¬ 
ant. 
Reference to the paragraph in this paper headed “ Description of the 
Disease” will show that abundance of bacteria is characteristic of the 
later stages of footrot rather than indicative that bacteria are in any sense 
primary. On July 31, 1914, a specimen from Mount Rainier, Md., was 
described as a “‘crown rot’ . . . tissue full of bacteria.” On September 
2, 1915, specimens from Richmond, Va., were “affected with a basal stem 
decay.” On August 3, 1916, a specimen “ in bad condition ” was received 
in the office from a garden in Washington, D. C. In January, 1920, a 
letter was received from Cobden, Ill., telling of the occurrence of a disease 
in rhubarb fields that had killed out a large number of plants. The 
statement was made that replantings made in the spring of 1919 into 
hills where rhubarb had died the year previously were killed by the 
disease that same summer. In the summer of 1921 specimens sent from 
St. Louis, Mo., showed typical symptoms and the presence of a Phycomy- 
cete, probably Phytophthora, in the roots. In addition, reports of 
rhubarb diseases with no particular clue as to their identity were received 
from time to time from Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Idaho. 
The earliest report of which the author has been able to find any 
record was contained in a letter dated July 20, 1902, from Prof. William 
Stuart, then at Purdue University, La Fayette, Ind., in which he de¬ 
scribed a disease of rhubarb similar to the one under investigation. 
Specimens accompanied the letter, but the correspondence shows that 
they were so much decayed that it was impossible to determine definitely 
the nature of the trouble. 2 
Beach (2)? who has made the only mention of such a disease to be 
found in the literature, reports in his paper and by letter that in the 
summer of 1920 a rhubarb crownrot due to Phytophthora was prevalent 
in Philadelphia County, Pa., in one case having killed nearly half the 
stand in an acre field. As will be shown later in this paper, however, 
his disease is not identical with that investigated by the writer, the causal 
organisms being distinctly different. 
This fact complicates the matter of distribution considerably, inas¬ 
much as the two diseases appear to be ^fe ry similar if not indistinguish¬ 
able. The other organism, or one very close to it, has also been received 
3 An extract from the letter follows: "The rhubarb plantation from which the plant sent you was taken 
is quite badly affected. The gross characters ot' the disease in affected plants is the wilting of a leaf or two 
until finally all are affected, when the crown turns dark and decays. The decay of the crown terminates 
the existence of the plant. The owner of the rhubarb bed said that he replaced all those that had died the 
year previous, only to find that the newly set plants soon became affected and succumbed to the disease." 
3 Reference is made by number (italic) to "Literature cited," p. 24-26. 
