509 
This fungus is one of the Uredineae having its three forms of 
spores produced upon the same host and, therefore, the student 
does not need to look elsewhere than upon the Asparagus for the 
aecidial, uredo, and teleutosporic forms of fruitage. ' 
During the season now closing the cluster cups were first 
found upon specimens sent to the experiment station June 3d) 
An examination of these plants showed that the aecidial cups are 
in oval clusters. Frequently the cups were arranged as a border 
to the oval sorus and all within were spermagonia. Other sori are 
entirely spermagonial with no signs of aecidia. The spermagonia 
are easily distinguished by their small size and the watery appear- 
ance they give to the diseased spot. 
The uredo form is frequently associated with the aecidia and 
its spores are produced in longitudinal slits in the epidermis in 
such abundance as to give the brownish color characteristic of the 
trusted plant. When associated with the clusters of aecidia the 
uredo sori are usually near to, but just outside of, the eet orange 
area devoted to cups and spermagonia. 
The teleutospores when with the cluster of aecidia are quickly 
distinguished by the dark color due to the spores and their eleva- 
tion above the level of the host. The sori of teleutospores occur 
anywhere in the aecidial cluster; thus, there may be one dark rift 
in the center of the cluster of cups or it may be close to the bor- 
der, where it is often quite long. 
It is seen from this that the asparagus rust appears in all of its 
forms almost simultaneously and often in the same disease spot. 
In short, several rust spots exhibited only spermagonia, others a 
mixture of these and the aecidia, while others had these two and 
the uredo or the teleutospore or both, so that a single diseased 
patch half the size of the little finger nail may contain all four 
forms. This matter of observation admits of the interpretation 
that all forms develop from the same unit of hyphae. 
The aecidial form is the first one in the fungus life cycle, it be- 
ing met with as early as June 3d, before stated, upon asparagus 
plants sent to the station from a center of the asparagus industry 
in the State. At that time the cutting of the beds was at its height 
and the rust was confined to the young plants that were allowed 
