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ALBANY, Ga. - Plant lovers in the South are being asked to watch their camellias, rhododendrons and other ornamentals for signs of sudden oak death, a fungal disease that has already killed thousands of trees on the West Coast.
U.S. Forest Service officials say the disease, which shows up with spots on leaves and dead twigs, was carried to the region in ornamentals shipped last year from nurseries in California and Oregon. The ornamentals serve as hosts and wind-borne spores can infect nearby oaks, which often die within two years.
The fear is that the fungus could have the same effect on oaks in eastern states as the chestnut blight did in the early 1900s. Spread by a fungus from Asia, chestnut blight virtually wiped out one of the East's major tree species within 50 years.
"It's a regional concern; it's a global concern," said William Jones, a plant pathologist with the Forest Service's forest health protection unit in Asheville, N.C. "The threat to the Appalachians is basically as large as it was from chestnut blight."
Twenty-three states, including Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida, received some of the infected plants. Georgia alone received 59,000 of them and officials destroyed 10,000 after 53 plants tested positive. But by then, retailers and nurseries had already sold about 49,000.
Those are probably already growing in yards and landscapes, so officials are asking residents to monitor ornamentals for the symptoms and submit samples for testing.
Other southeastern states have mounted similar monitoring programs, although scientists are still not sure if the disease will cause as much damage as in California because of climate differences.
"We don't know how susceptible our natives are going to be to this," University of Georgia forester Dave Moorhead said. "If it turns out there is some degree of susceptibility, it's too late."
If it spreads into the South, sudden oak death could cause significant damage to the region's forest industry. In Georgia alone, forestry is a $20 billion industry. About half of the state's 24 million acres of forest are made up of hardwood trees including oaks.
The Georgia Forestry Commission, which is responsible for the state's forests, has launched a statewide educational effort to alert customers. The Georgia Department of Agriculture, which regulates the state's nurseries, also has stepped up inspections.
James Johnson, the Forestry Commission's forest health coordinator, said sudden oak death causes cankers around the truck that cut off the tree's supply of water and nutrients.
Since its discovery in 1995 in California, sudden oak death has killed thousands of native oaks and tan oaks. It thrives in the cool, damp climate along the West Coast.
The entire West Coast is classified as a high-risk area, along with a large chunk of the East that has similar weather, stretching from southern Pennsylvania to northeastern Alabama.
Florida and several other states banned shipments of California ornamentals last year, but lifted the ban when the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) began requiring nursery inspections in California, Oregon and Washington. All plants that could host the disease have to be serviced disease-free before they can leave any of the three states.
The disease has been a major setback for California's $3.2 billion nursery industry, which is the nation's largest. "It's a problem and it's recognized and we're taking care of it," said Rick Dominge, president of the Nursery Growers Association of California.