65 
in the year 1845. Any one, however, \yho has practically studied 
the life history of the uredines must be aware that all a^cidiospores 
(jike the conidia of the Peroiiospord) are endowed with but a very 
limited term of vitality. If we wish to infect a plant with the ?ecidio- 
spores of a uredine they must be perfectly fresh, as well as perfectly 
ripe, and_ to imagine that the spores of j^cidiiim Berberidis can be 
blown mile after mile by the wind and still retain their germinative 
power is simply absurd. If we observe what actually occurs in nature 
we shall have ample evidence that this far spreading of the parasite 
does not take place in the aforesaid manner. It is not in the district 
from which I write an easy thing to find a barberry bush in the 
hedge of a corn-field, for the practical nature of the observations 
made by our agricultural forefathers have pretty well exterminated 
the barberry. I was, however, able to do this two years ago. Three 
barberries grew in the hedge of a wheat-field, and around each of 
these bushes the wheat at harvest was as black as if soot had been 
scattered upon it, in a semicircle about 50 yards across- Nearest the 
bush it was quite black, but the mildew gradually became less and less 
the farther we proceeded from the bush. The rest of the field was 
perfectly healthy. 
When the parasitic fungus starts from the ?ecidiospore, the teleu- 
tospores are produced very early, and in great profusion, but when it 
starts from the teleutospore the uredo is in great profusion and the 
teleutospore comparatively sparse. I obtained some specimens of 
wheat mildew from Australia in which the enormous development of 
rust," compared to the ** mildew," was very striking and unlike 
anything I had ever previously seen in England. It was this which 
first drew my attention to the above-mentioned fact, to which I 
alluded in a paper on the subject of Heteroecism, in "Sunlight." It 
IS also observable in Puccinia rubigo-vera, which is here very abund- 
ant early in the year upon wheat. The uredo is extremely abundant, 
but the teleutospores are but slightly developed. The a^cidium of this 
Puccinia I have never yet seen in the fresh state, although the other 
spore-forms are to be found in every wheat-field. The same is true 
^f tlie specimen of Puccinia obscura which Professor Farlow sent to 
me, as compared with the fungus as it occurs when developed directly 
^om the daisy aecidium. I am much pleased to find that Mr. 
Rostrup the eminent Danish mycologist, in his recent paper, 
Heteroeciske Uredineer, holds the same view. He mentions the fact 
that Cohosporium Scnccionis, when growing in districts in which fir- 
j^ees do not occur, consists almost entirely of uredospores. Further, 
he has found Chrysojuyxa Lcdi upon a plant of Ledujn paliistre from 
v^reenland, a country in which the secidium^bearing host-plant 
\Piceaexceha) does not grow- 
King's Lynn, Eng. Charles B. Plowright. 
. Mutilation of Flowers by Bees.— Referring to Prof. Bailey's note 
>n the May Bulletin, I may say that it has been a matter of fre- 
quent observation with myself that the flowers of Diccntra CuciiUaria 
^je systematically punctured by bees; when gro-.vin*g wild Corydalis 
g'auca suffers in the same manner, and, T doubt not, other members of 
