Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various extremely small bacteria that lack a cell wall and are transmitted by insects to plants, where they cause disease by infecting the phloem.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of various specialized bacteria that are obligate parasites of plant phloem tissue and of some insects, characterized by the lack of a cell wall, a pleiomorphic or filamentous shape (normally with a diameter of less than one micrometer), and their very small genomes.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin Phytoplasma, proposed genus name for the organisms : phyto– + (myco)plasma.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

phyto- +‎ plasma

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