Hemileia vastatrix

… plants caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix. Coffee rust has long been known in coffee-growing areas of Africa, the Near East, India, Asia, and Australasia, and it destroyed the once-flourishing coffee plantations of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Java in the late 1800s. In 1970 the disease was discovered to…

…rust, caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix, which does considerable damage in the plantations of Arabica, and coffee berry disease, caused by the fungus Colletotrichum coffeanum, which also attacks the Arabica. Robusta appears to be resistant, or only slightly susceptible, to these scourges. Among the numerous parasites that attack the…