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From: lecl@quads.uchicago.edu (elizabeth e. leclair)
Subject: Re: Cancer in plants?
Message-ID: <1991Apr22.232650.2061@midway.uchicago.edu>
Summary:  I think so...
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (NewsMistress)
Organization: University of Chicago
References: <3442@beguine.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1991 23:26:50 GMT

In article <3442@beguine.UUCP> rhunt@med.unc.edu (Rick Hunt) writes:
>Several days ago on the way to work I saw a strange growth on a tree.  It
>had what looked like dozens of twigs growing from one spot.  At first I
>thought it was a bird's nest, but it started sprouting leaves with the
>arrival of spring.  Then I started to wonder if it would be a kind of cancer.
>So now it is stupid question time:  Do plants get cancer?  If they do,
>what does it look like?
>
>Rick Hunt
>rhunt@med.unc.edu


   I am not a botanist, but I recall that plants do exhibit "cancers" in
  the form of growths or "galls" that often appear like large warts on stems
  or the trunks of trees.  These are essentially rampant cell lines which
  proliferate much like cancer cells, but are prevented from spreading or
  metastasizing becuase of the plant cells' walled construction.  These
  rampant cell lines have some interference with their regulatory growth
  hormones, which might explain the strange proliferation of little twigs 
  on the tree.

   Just a non-botanist's 2 cents.
  

-- 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>   Elizabeth E. LeClair   [lecl@midway.uchicago.edu]  <<<<<<<<<<<
  I can't remember which brand of beer gets me girls and which merely 
  submerges me in a mountain stream. -- S.P.