Page 24 - Volume 5, Issue 1, January 2012
Basic HTML Version
© Benaki Phytopathological Institute
Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki,
School of Agricultural Technology, Laboratory of Ento-
mology, P. O. Box 141, GR-547 00 Thessaloniki
e-mail:
The ever-increasing demand of aromatic
plants on behalf of consumers has result-
ed in their large-scale cultivation in Greece.
This, in turn, has led to a pressing demand
for surveying and recording insect pests
that cause damage on aromatic plants and
reduce production. This communication
reports for the first time sweet basil
, Oci-
mum basilicum (
Lamiaceae
),
as a host plant
of the brown soft scale,
Coccus hesperidum
Linnaeus, 1758
(Hemiptera: Coccidae), in
Greece.
Ocimum basilicum,
locally known in
Greece as “hagioritikos”, is an aromatic plant
known from the ancient times, which is
mostly used for medical and religious pur-
poses in Greece. Scientific studies
in vitro
have established that compounds in basil oil
have potent antioxidant, antiviral and anti-
microbial properties as well as the potential
for use in treating cancer (3, 5, 7, 11).
Coccus hesperidum
is one of the most
widespread and polyphagous scale insects.
It occurs on the leaves and twigs of many
important plants such as cottonwood, palm,
strawberry tree but not on grasses (6, 9).
Host plants reported in Hawaii include
Cit-
rus
spp
.
, loquat,
Moraea bicolor, Moraea iridi-
oides,
orchids, papaya, rubber and
Santalum
haleakalae
(17). In Fiji, it has been recorded
as a pest of coconuts (18). Gill (9) reported
that in California the brown soft scale is an
annoying insect that feeds on a wide variety
of hosts i.e. aspen, avocado, citrus, cotton-
wood, holly, manzanita, palm, poplar, stone
fruit, strawberry tree and willow. Almost a
decade later, Dreistadt
et al.
completed the
insect’s host-plant list (8). Neither this list
nor the recent one of scale insects of Slove-
nia, Iran, Bulgaria and China (13, 14, 15) com-
prise
O. basilicum
as a host plant. In Greece,
C. hesperidum
has been recorded on various
hosts, especially citrus, but not on
O. basili-
cum
(2, 12, 16).
Following several years of insect pest
surveys on aromatic plants,
C. hesperidum
was observed on isolated plants of an or-
ganic culture of
O. basilicum
, in northern
Greece, namely Thessaloniki region, in 2003.
Since then, the infestation was spread in the
rest of Thessaloniki Prefecture, then to Kava-
la Prefecture and other regions of Greece.
Samples of the scale insect were collected,
brought to the laboratory and slide mount-
ed by using Wileky’s method (10). Identifica-
tion was primarily made by the author using
the adult’s morphological characteristics ac-
cording to Kosztarab and Kozár (10), Gill (9)
and verified by Dr G. Watson in Natural His-
tory Museum of London.
Hellenic Plant Protection Journal
5:
23-25, 2012
SHORT COMMUNICATION
Coccus hesperidum
(Hemiptera: Coccidae) on
Ocimum basilicum
: A new record of host plant in Greece
S.C. Papadopoulou
Summary
The brown soft scale
, Coccus hesperidum
(Hemiptera: Coccidae), was found on sweet bas-
il,
Ocimum basilicum (
Lamiaceae
),
topically named “hagioritikos”, for the first time in northern Greece
at the regions of Thessaloniki and Kavala. The scale was mainly observed on the stems and also the
leaves of
O. basilicum
.
Additional keywords:
brown soft scale, Lamiaceae, Greece, invasive pest
