Mortality of <I>Eucalyptus citriodora</I> Hook.

Abstract

Eucalyptus citriodora Hook., an exotic in India, and raised in plantations in Bijnor, U.P. since 1957 is dying in large numbers. The symptoms of the disease include drying up of leaves on the crown, large cankers on stem, gum veins, and false rings. The various causes, pathogenic and physiogenic, in the mortality of the species are analysed. In its native habitat in Australia E. citriodora cannot stand even slight frost, while there are records of severe frost in the Bijnor plantations during 1960-61 and 1961-62. The symptoms of the disease are likely to be caused due to frost through fire could also be a contributing factor, both of which could be ascribed as probable causes of large scale dying of the species.