A chance discovery early in 1980 led to a body of work on a virus and a rare species that lasted until the end of the decade. The discovery and characterisation of turnip yellow mosaic virus (TYMV-Cd) infecting one-fifth of the fragmented population of Cardamine robusta at Mt Kosciuszko, New South Wales, revealed a puzzle that remains unresolved. There is no clear explanation as to why there is a population of TYMV here in the Southern Hemisphere whose sequence has only diverged from Northern Hemisphere TYMV by a few percent. Adding to the mystery is the fact that TYMV-Cd only infects one of the rarest and geographically most restricted species in Australia, while it is surrounded by potential hosts known to be infected in the Northern Hemisphere. This article reviews research published on TYMV at Mt Kosciuszko during the 1980s and 1990s. While human agency cannot be ruled out, indications are that TYMV established without human intervention. The work is set in a historical context and highlights some of the changes around how plant virology is done.

1980 年初的一次偶然发现引发了一系列关于病毒和稀有物种的研究工作，一直持续到 20 世纪末。萝卜黄花叶病毒 (TYMV-Cd) 感染新南威尔士州 Kosciuszko 山五分之一的粗碎碎米荠种群，其发现和表征揭示了一个尚未解决的谜团。目前还没有明确的解释为什么南半球有一个 TYMV 种群，其序列与北半球 TYMV 的差异仅几个百分点。更神秘的是，TYMV-Cd 仅感染澳大利亚最稀有、地理上最受限制的物种之一，而它周围都是已知在北半球感染的潜在宿主。本文回顾了 20 世纪 80 年代和 90 年代在 Mt Kosciuszko 的 TYMV 上发表的研究。虽然不能排除人为作用的可能性，但有迹象表明 TYMV 在没有人为干预的情况下建立。这项工作以历史背景为背景，强调了植物病毒学研究方式的一些变化。