It contains Gram-negative bacteria related to Escherichia coli, Shigella, Salmonella, and Yersinia.

A well-known member of this genus is the species E. amylovora, which causes fire blight on apples, pears, and other Rosaceae crops; E. tracheiphila, though, causes bacterial wilt of cucurbits.

Other familiar species, such as E. carotovora (another major cause of plant diseases), are more distantly related to the fire blight bacterium, and have been moved to genera Brenneria, Dickeya, and Pectobacterium.

[2] E. aphidicola appears to display characteristics of a pathogen as it had decimated fifty percent of a bean crop in Spain in late 2003.

[5] Erwinia uredovora is a bacterium from which Phytoene desaturase was isolated, which is the gene that is inserted into golden rice.