THE CURLED LEAF (Ascomyces deformans). 
BY H. W. HARKNESS. 
This fungus, too well known to most peach - growers, has been 
given several generic names, but is, perhaps, best known as As- 
comyces. It is now mature, and producing the countless spores 
which give a glaucous bloom to the distorted leaves. No remedy 
has been found which promises relief from its ravages, and a circum- 
stance lately observed leads me to fear that its extirpation will be 
attended by an unexpected difficulty. 
At several times during the past few years leaves and twigs of 
buckeye (Zsculus Californica) have reached me which were 
covered with an Ascomyces, practically indistinguishable from 
A. deformans, the only difference observed being a perhaps 
slightly more regular narrowing of the asci towards the base. 
All the specimens sent me, and all that have been observed, 
so far as I know, have come from the vicinity of infected peach 
trees. The localities noted are Salmon Falls, El Dorado County; 
Mormon Island, Sacramento County; San Gregorio Creek, San 
Mateo County; Scott Creek, near Santa Cruz; and Wildwood Glen, 
near Sausalito. 
The fungus affects the buckeye somewhat differently from the 
peach. The infected tree usually has one or more rather dense 
bunches of small twigs, often one or two feet in diameter, the whole 
mass profoundly diseased, the mycelium ramifying to such an extent 
that the tender leaves are most frequently killed before the fungus 
matures, and the mass looks as if it had been dipped in boiling 
water or killed by a sharp frost. The mycelium evidently persists 
for years in these twigs and small branches, producing annually a 
crop of diseased leaves, and does not penetrate to the harder and 
older wood, for in that case it would be generally diffused. There 
are usually, besides these diseased bunches, scattered spots of infec- 
tion upon the leaves in other parts of the tree. The difference in 
the action of the fungus is probably due to the very brief life of the 
buckeye leaves. In this State they usually fall in the early summer, 
the bare, white stems which form a conspicuous feature in so many 
of our hillside landscapes remaining leafless until the following 
April. The leaves are thus very apt to fall before the ramifying 
mycelium reaches the twig: this fact also lessens the danger of 
their infecting other trees. 
