Tobacco Mosaic Virus
20 Nov 2022
Ink painting/drawing of Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) symptoms on tobacco.
The painting shows a young tobacco plant with a rosette of eight leaves. The leaves are mottled with a mosaic of varying shades of green. The lower, older leaves have brown necrotic patches, known as 'mosaic burn', surrounded by yellow areas of chlorosis.
Top: scanned image
Middle: photograph
Bottom: phytopoetry!
I accidentally flicked black ink onto the page in three places. Attempting to clean the paper made it worse if anything!
S. E. Bartholomew (@phytopoetry) sent me a poem to accompany my TMV picture!
Stray DNA
Please don’t play with the stray DNA.
You’ll end up with a chlorotic tattoo.
Don’t fall for a pretty protein coat.
Its wearer just wants to eat you.
Turning good cells against themselves,
To churn out some thick viral stew.
This may sound neat, unless you’re the treat
Feeling firsthand what foul genes can do.
I like my organs to remain my own,
Not turned to factories for clones of clones.
I don’t know many who are desirous
To play host to a deadbeat virus.
The tweet states:
“#phytopoetry to accompany @hgpennington’s talented TMV artwork. The title is “Stray DNA” and it is dedicated to all the Tobamoviruses out there. @CropNetwork @plantdisease @PlantPathISU“