A front row seat to the drama of evolution?

Our discovery, in the 1990s, of the new disease that came to be called rapid blight, raised many questions. Where did it come from? Was it really a new disease, or had we just not noticed it in the past? How did it come to occur on turf?

All early indications were that this was not only a brand new disease, but also a brand new organism, Layrinthula terrestris. Neither a fungus nor a bacterium, Labyrinthula had heretofore been seen…