Yellowing accompanied by Wilting is a predominant symptom in most cases where transpiration is more active than root-absorption beyond a certain limit, as is well known in cases of prolonged drought. It may also be caused in evergreens by the foliage transpiring actively in bright January weather, for instance, while the ground is frozen and the chilled root-hairs cannot absorb.
In other cases similar appearances are traceable to insects devouring the roots, e.g. wireworms, and the malady is sometimes enhanced by their accumulations so fouling the wet soil that the roots die off, owing to want of oxygen and to the excess of carbon-dioxide and poisonous matters.
Yellowing may also result from the presence of poisonous or acid gases in the atmosphere or soil, such as chlorine, hydrochloric acid, sulphurous acid, etc., in the neighbourhood of chemical works, or from the escape of coal-gas in streets, etc., points of importance in connection with the use of fungicides and insecticides.
Yellowness is the prevailing symptom in many cases of fungus attack of the roots or collar of the plant, the resulting stoppage of transpiration being also sometimes supplemented by rotting of the roots, and the consequent deprival of oxygen and accumulation of foul gases. In other cases Fungi, and even Bacteria, have been found to have made their way into the principal vessels, the lumina of which they stop up, thus reducing the transpiration current.
Certain insects may also induce a general yellowing and wilting of plants by entering or destroying the tissues concerned in the transpiration—e.g. Oniscus, the Frit Fly, and Cecidomya, the Hessian Fly, which attack young winter wheat within the sheaths and cause the plants to turn yellow and wilt.
Albinism and Variegation are apparently due to causes totally different from any yet mentioned. Church's analyses have shown that albino leaves contain more water and less organic matter than green ones of the same plants, but not necessarily less ash constituents. The composition of the ash points to there being more potash and less lime in the white organs than in the green ones, and, speaking generally, the former are related to the latter much as young leaves are related to mature ones.
The whole matter is complicated by the behaviour of certain variegated plants—e.g. Ribbon grass, Calla, Abutilon, which are usually regarded as partial albinos.
Meyen showed long ago that such variegated plants, if grafted on green ones, may induce the development of variegated leaves on both scion and stock, and Morren and others have not only confirmed this but have also shown that variegation may be inherited through the seed. Nevertheless some care has to be taken with many of these variegations lest rich soil, bright light, and other favourable treatment favour the restitution of the green colour. These facts may be interpreted in various ways. Some disturbance of physiological functions of the roots, due to unfavourable conditions of soil, may be the cause; but Beijerinck has lately published some results which show that some of these albino diseases can be induced by inoculating normal plants with the juice of spotted ones even though such juice has been filtered through porcelain, and concludes that a "contagium fluidum vivum" of the nature of a transmissible enzyme is the agent which disturbs the physiology of the infected cells.
Koning, while confirming these results in the main, refers them to a micro-organism so small that it traverses the porcelain filter.
Upheaval of seedlings.—This is a common form of injury, resulting in death by drought and exposure, especially in seedling pines, wheat, etc., in soils exposed to alternate freezing and thawing during spring when there is no snow to protect the plants. The soil freezes during the night, and during the thaw next day water accumulates just below the surface. The freezing is then repeated, and, partly owing to the expansion of the forming ice and partly to the mechanical effect of the ice-crystals in the interstices, the surface of the soil is lifted and draws the roots with it. During the succeeding thaw the soil particles fall away from the lifted root-fibres, and frequent repetition of these processes results in such complete exposure of the roots to the full sun that the plantlet falls over and wilts.
