1
Two diseased leaves from a "sick looking" branch near the base of the plant.
This branch had some spotted leaves, as shown above, where the left is a leaf bottom and the right is a leaf top.
A microscopic inspection of the leaf showed nothing unusual except for the dark discolorations, which
may simply be a secondary pathogen that is taking advantage of the weakened plant.
2
Branch junction destruction in a Mountain Fire Andromeda.
Since the outer leaf junction looked suspicious, I clipped it off and scanned it at 2400 dpi.
The result is shown in the picture above.
The wrinkled and dead bark seem to indicate that this
bush is under a strong attack by some pathogen.
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Examining this diseased branch junction using a 400x microscope, I found spores, as shown above.
These are the same type of spores found on the other diseased trees.
Phytophthora are known to shoot out transparent tendrils,
and the rightmost picture above shows such a tendril clump.
In particular, note the yellow spore suspended in the air!
This bush was near our garage entrance. It appeared very healthy but had one sick looking branch near the base.