The conker canker: disease fells avenue of horse chestnuts

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By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor Saturday 26, February 2011

A sad milestone in the spread of a disease mortally affecting Britain's horse chestnut trees was passed this week when one of the country's noblest horse chestnut avenues was finally cut down.

The trees lining the drive of 16th-century Barrington Court at Ilminster in Somerset, had become stricken with bleeding canker, an infection caused by a virulent bacterium that produces a rust-coloured liquid which oozes from the bark and eventually kills the tree.

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