Scientists are racing to save Australia’s ‘zombie tree’ from a fast-spreading fungal disease
Australian scientists are embarking on a desperate race to save a newly identified “zombie tree” before it disappears from Queensland’s rainforests.
They discovered that the tree, Rhodamnia Zombiescan no longer produce flowers, fruits or seeds, leaving it alive but unable to propagate in the wild. The zombie tree, which was just discovered in 2020 and which was described as a new species last year, suffered from a fast-spreading fungal disease called myrtle rust.
Article continues below
In a study published on December 11, 2025 in the journal Southern ecologythe researchers warned that R.zombi and 16 other rainforest tree species are attacked by this pathogenic fungus and could disappear within a generation without appropriate intervention.
Fungal deaths
Myrtle rust, caused by the fungus Austropuccinia psidii, was detected for the first time in Hawaii in 2005 and in Australia in 2010. Since then, its spores have spread widely because they are carried by wind, birds, people, machines and insects.
“There’s not much you can do to stop the spread,” Fensham told Live Science. “The Achilles heel of myrtle rust is that it needs a certain type of environment. It has to be a humid world, not too cold either… Where I live in Brisbane, in the middle, it’s the perfect environment for it.”
Myrtle rust is originally from South Americawhere native plants that co-evolved with the fungus developed resistance to it. The disease is called myrtle rust because the fungus attacks plants in the myrtle familyMyrtaceae, which includes eucalyptus, tea plants and other Australian rainforest species. Myrtle rust produces pustules of yellow, orange, or brown powdery spores – which look like rust – on infected plant tissue, slowly killing the plant by draining it of its nutrients.
Because the Australian species have developed little or no resistance against the pathogen, they are what Fensham calls “naïve hosts”. “Humans have been naive hosts of the coronavirus,” he said, “and it’s the same.”
To determine the extent of myrtle rust, researchers revisited vulnerable rainforest populations in the wild. Examining sites across eastern Australia, the team traced which species were still producing flowers and fruit, which had stopped breeding, and which populations had already disappeared.
These species included the zombie tree. When the team revisited known wild populations of A. zombies, they found that about 10% of the populations had already disappeared and the remaining infected trees no longer produced flowers or fruit.
“The Myrtaceae are a monstrous family in Australia, [and] it’s a small subset that we’ve realized is in real trouble because of this disease,” Fensham said. “So I guess it could be worse if the intolerance was more widespread in this huge group of plants. But it’s bad enough as it is.”
How to save a zombie
Because infected wild trees no longer reliably produce seeds, scientists clone surviving plants using cuttings that can then be grown in nurseries and then moved to safer areas where the climate is less favorable for myrtle rust.
Another option is to use a fungicide to keep trees in infected areas alive long enough for the plants to produce seeds. Scientists may then be able to identify plants that are more tolerant to myrtle rust. In the best case scenario, these more resistant plants could one day be returned to the forest.
“It seems like a very long shot,” Fensham said. “But in reality, all the measures … have been taken by enthusiastic people over the past few years. There is a real desire and ability to save these trees.”
Fensham said researchers are studying a treatment to save trees that works similar to a vaccine. “There are some attempts to develop an RNA vaccine,” he said. “Different variants [are] evolving, as we speak, this could have different tolerances.
However, he said the most realistic plan is to focus on growing cuttings from surviving plants in a safe environment. “The species needs time and space without being constantly hit by myrtle rust to have any hope of expressing some resistance,” he said in the release.
Fensham, RJ, Butler, D., Espe, B., Paxton, IJ, Radford‐Smith, J., & Shaw, S. (2025). Myrtle Rust continues to ravage rainforest trees: strategies for resurrecting the undead. Southern Ecology, 50(12). https://doi.org/10.1111/aec.70155
