SummaryLight and electron microscopy was used to study the ultrastructural effects of June Yellows (JY) in leaves of strawberry. Four cultivars of strawberry, affected to different extents by JY, were compared with healthy (JY‐free) cv. Cambridge Favourite and with strawberry infected with strawberry crinkle rhabdovirus,Fragaria vescainfected with strawberry mottle virus (SMotV), raspberry and black currant showing virus‐induced yellowing and with strawberry and raspberry showing chaemeric yellow sectors in the leaves. Except for isometric virus‐like particles detected in SMotV‐infectedF. vesca, no virus‐like particles or structures of other pathogenic agents were found in any of the tissues examined. Leaf cells of JY‐affected strawberry showed severe disruption of chloroplasts and plasmalemma, whorls of membranous vesicles and decreased vacuole size. The extent and severity of these abnormalities increased with increased severity of JY symptoms but, even in leaves with mild JY symptoms, chloroplast abnormalities were obvious. In the most severely affected leaves, the cells lacked discrete vacuoles and extensive hypertrophy was seen in other organelles such as nuclei and mitochondria. Few, if any, ultrastructural abnormalities were observed in virus‐infected strawberry orF. vesca, or in chaemeric leaves of strawberry and raspberry. By contrast, in raspberry and black currant with yellowed leaves caused by virus infection, the cells showed enlarged chloroplasts, decreased vacuole size and vesicle formation. However, chloroplast enlargement and disruption in this material seemed due to increased size of starch grains which were largely absent from swollen chloroplasts of JY‐affected strawberry. The ultrastructural abnormalities observed in JY‐affected strawberry are, therefore, not inconsistent with the possibility that a pathogenic agent may be involved