The disease was characterized by malformation of the entire spike and the affected vines showed conspicuous tufts of malformed branches giving a witches broom appearance with yellowing symptoms that were well discernible from a distance ( Sarma et al., 1988). In a recent survey, the occurrence of the disease was also reported from other black pepper growing regions of Kerala state, India. The incidence of the disease was severe in areas adjacent to forests and association of two types of plant hoppers was seen with diseased vines ( Anonymous, 2002). Based on the symptomatology, involvement of a phytoplasma was suspected in the disease. This paper reports the cloning and sequencing of 1.2 kb fragment of 16S rDNA of the phytoplasma from phyllody disease affected black pepper and its identification.