Plant Viruses

Plant Viruses is a Browse By group of the Nature Atlas that gathers viruses whose hosts are plants, which spread from plant to plant by sap, insects, soil organisms or seed and cause diseases such as mottling, stunting and leaf distortion, as Tobacco mosaic virus does, a positive-sense RNA virus of the genus Tobamovirus that infects tobacco and other members of the nightshade family and was the first virus ever discovered. An entry belongs here when its own cited article describes a virus that infects plants. It excludes the viruses of humans and other animals, such as the herpesviruses and the hepadnaviruses, which have groups of their own. The group lets a reader follow the history of virology from a leaf disease to the modern study of viruses.