Bug Vomit Killing Trees I was writing about this story affecting palm trees in the Tampa Bay area of Florida over on The Random Forest ( Bug Vomit Killing Trees ) and it got me thinking about how this bug vomit spread disease could result in the decline of Florida’s native palm species. It kind of mirrors how society tends to work, ok you may have to bear with me here but i’ll get to my point. Bug Vomit Killing Trees, The Story Ok so the basics of the story are that a kind of unidentified planthopper insect is piercing palm tree leaves in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. Once pierced the ill mannered bug vomits in the wound and infects the tree with a disease. The bacteria in the vomit, known as phytoplasma, first kills the lower leaves of the palm and then affects news shoots before killing the whole tree. A nasty degenerative disease it sounds like! The disease can however be treated if the trees are injected with antibiotics, just like our diseases! Bug Vomit Killing Trees, The Social Commentary As mentioned the nasty disease can be treated. Florida is full of a huge variety of palms but it’s only really the sabal palm that can be counted as native (correct me if I am wrong here). The sabal grows wild and lives all over the place which is fantastic but it’s often not the palm that is picked when landscaping a property, resort, park or wherever. The treatment of course costs money and the people who can afford it are not going to want to pay for all those poor wild sabal trees. They will treat and cure the expensive imported trees that they have on their business or property leaving the poor old common native sabal out of the cold and in the face of the danger from the disease. We see this happening with humans quite often too I think! I would be really sad for Florida to lose it’s native sabal although luckily the disease does have an Achilles heal and doesn’t spread in colder areas so the Northern part of the state should be able to survive and hopefully it’s sabals will too. Do you think I am making a stupid comparison here or is it indicative of the way we act as humans? Do you live in Florida and do you think that it is possible that these bugs could kill off the native palms? I’d love to hear your thoughts, thanks for reading. - Bug Vomit Killing Trees
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Bug Vomit Killing Trees
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