Others in the School of Agriculture as well as outside the University provided additional diagnostic expertise. In addition, Volutella blight has also been confirmed on a sample. This devastating fungal disease of pachysandra causes a leaf blight and stem canker and can destroy large areas in a bed. Infected leaves first develop tan or brown blotches with dark brown margins, which expand, often with concentric lighter and darker zones. Stem and stolon cankers can become numerous, causing plants to wilt and die.
Cankers appear as watersoaked diseased areas, turn brown, shrivel and often girdle the stem.
Infections often begin in damaged or senescent plant parts and spread into healthy plant parts. Volutella is a wound parasite, capable of girdling stems within two weeks of infection. Under warm, humid conditions in late spring and summer, the fungus produces pink fruiting structures containing masses of fungal spores on the surfaces of cankers and undersurfaces of infected leaves. Volutella blight of pachysandra is often associated with plant stresses such as recent transplanting, exposure to bright sunlight, shearing, scale insects, and previous winter or cold damage. Normally this disease does little damage to vigorous plants, so providing good growing conditions is the most important control measure.