A serious plant disease caused by a parasitic protist that deforms and swells the roots of cabbage, broccoli, and other plants, making them club-shaped.
From club (the swollen, club-like appearance of infected roots) + root (from Old English wyrt meaning plant part). The disease was formally identified and named in the 19th century as agricultural science developed.
Clubroot has been devastating crops for centuries, and farmers in the 1600s had no idea a microscopic slime mold was the culprit—it wasn't until the electron microscope was invented that scientists could finally see Plasmodiophora brassicae and understand this mysterious plague.
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