witches'-broom

[wich-iz-broom, -broom]

noun

Plant Pathology.

1. an abnormal, brushlike growth of small thin branches on woody plants, caused especially by fungi, viruses, and mistletoes.

witches'-broom

/ ˈwɪtʃˌbruːm /

noun

1. a dense abnormal growth of shoots on a tree or other woody plant, usually caused by parasitic fungi of the genus Taphrina

Word History and Origins

Origin of witches'-broom¹

First recorded in 1865–70

Example Sentences

Plants — in this case Arabidopsis thaliana, the diminutive mustard plant that’s a common lab model — with this modification did not grow into witches’ broom shapes, and they did not live longer than uninfected plants.

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Its leaves take on odd shapes, its stems form a bushy structure called a witches’ broom and it may grow flowers that do not produce seed.

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Smeraldi argues that the Yanomami cacao’s origins in this isolated jungle could make its genetic properties attractive to the world cacao industry, which is vulnerable to climate change and blights such as the witches’ broom fungus which ravaged cacao plantations in the state of Bahia three decades ago.

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A fungus called witches’ broom decimated Brazil’s chocolate empire in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

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Between 1917 and 1925, overlapping outbreaks of witches’ broom and frosty pod rot cut Ecuador’s cacao exports in half.

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