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Old 12-06-2003, 01:56 PM
Iris Cohen
 
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Default Does cancer affect plants?

Please be more specific. If you mean, can plants catch cancer from animals, the
answer is no. Plants do not catch animal diseases. As a matter of fact,
animals, including people, do not catch cancer from each other, unless it is
caused by a retrovirus, & even then, contagion is extremely rare.
If you mean, do plants get cancer, in general, there are no diseases I know of
in plants where cell division runs amok and spreads throughout the plant.
Occasionally, a plant will exhibit some excessive callous proliferation at the
site of a specific wound, but I never heard of it spreading to another part of
the plant. Sometimes plants get galls caused by a disease or insect, but it is
not really the same as cancer.
There is a condition in plants called fasciation, where the growing point
becomes a line, or monstrose growth, where the growing point becomes totally
confused. The resulting plant is a curiosity, but it is not a sickness & does
not affect the plant's health.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming
train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)