Ceratocystis platani causes a disease in
plane trees known as "Canker stain of plane" (UK English) or "Canker of sycamore" (US English). Oriental plane (
Platanus orientalis) is considered highly susceptible to the fungus; American sycamore (
Platanus occidentalis) probably coevolved with the fungus and is relatively resistant, while the hybrid London plane (
Platanus × hispanica) is generally intermediate in resistance between its parents. The fungus is a wound parasite which rapidly infects plane trees, causing disruption of water movement, cankers and eventually death. Cankers on the tree trunk are characterised by necrosis of inner bark and bluish-black to reddish-brown discolouration of sapwood. The disease can cause sudden death of a portion of the crown, and trees of 30–40 cm diameter may die within 2–3 years of infection.
North America The disease was first reported in the USA in 1935 affecting
Platanus × hispanica. In subsequent years the disease was reported in most Atlantic seaboard states. It was subsequently observed in plantations and in natural forests of
Platanus occidentalis. The disease has also been reported in California. In
Philadelphia the disease had killed 10,000 out of a total 150,000 trees by 1945. In
Gloucester, New Jersey, 87% of London planes had died by 1949.
Europe and the Near East , Southern France (2014) The disease was first found in Europe in
Marseille, France, in 1945, and is believed to have been transported there by US troops during
Operation Dragoon towards the end of
World War II. The pathogen is now present in most of
Italy. It has also been reported in
Spain,
Switzerland,
Greece,
Iran, and
Armenia. In Italy and the south-east of France the disease has caused serious losses. In Marseille, where the first phase of infection started in 1945, 1850 Plane trees were killed between 1960 and 1972 (about 13% of the initial population). At
Forte dei Marmi, one of the oldest infection centres in Italy, 90% of all plane trees died of the disease in the twenty-year period from 1972-1991.
Ceratocystis platani was first detected in Greece in 2003. Since then, hundreds of dead and dying trees have been found along streams and rivers in southwestern Greece, and many ornamental trees have died in residential and recreational areas. In 2006
C. platani was identified as the cause of plane tree death along the
Canal du Midi, a UNESCO world heritage site in France. The canal is lined with around 42,000 plane trees and up to 2011, around 2,500 trees had been felled, destroyed and replaced with disease-resistant planes. ==References==