The roots are prevented from fulfilling their function of taking up water and salts from the soil; the leaves accordingly droop, and the whole plant wilts and in bad attacks dies.
Societies were also formed in Somerset, Wilts, Gloucestershire, Leicester, Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire and the south of Yorkshire.
The Wilts and Berks canal, joining the Thames at Abingdon, is disused.
In 785 he was surprised and killed, with all his thegns present, at Marten, Wilts (Merantune), by Cyneheard, brother of the deposed Sigeberht.
It was not incorporated, however, until 1645, when it was made a free borough under the title of "aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Malmesbury, County Wilts."