NoTES ON THE ERYSIPHACEAE 189 
ing, fertilization fails—if afterwards, the young fruit does not fall, 
but usually becomes more or less atrophied or withered on the 
plant, and is always depreciated in quality. The mildew appears 
to be more prevalent in wet than in dry years, and is found more 
in localities in which water remains at the foot of the plant than in 
those in which the soil being permeable leaves the stock free from 
water. The disease always begins on trees which have thejr roots 
more or less affected and made rotten by stagnant water, and then 
spreads from these plants radially as from so many centers of in- 
fection. The means adopted of dealing with the disease is to bare 
the roots of the trees most seriously attacked, and to cut off those » 
roots which are more or less rotten; and further to keep the soil 
soft and permeable at the foot of the trees by burying there faggots 
or straw. Cutting off the tops of diseased branches is also recom- 
mended. 
Grimaldi (Come fare fruttificare abbondantemente il carrubio, 
Palermo, 1895) also reports that the present fungus seriously 
affects in some seasons the harvest of carob-beans (St. John’s 
bread), and states that the disease is popularly known as “a fari- 
nedda.”’ 
Although no perithecia were observed on the carob trees 
affected, Comes referred his “ 0. ceratoniae” to Phyllactinia corylea, 
considering it to be the conidial stage of that species. 
In 1899 I received from Professor P. Gennardius, Director of 
Agriculture, at Nicosia, Cyprus, some diseased pods of Ceratonia 
Stliqua, which on examination were found to be covered with a 
mildew. The fungus, which was stated to cause great damage to 
the carob crop in Cyprus in some seasons, is evidently the ‘ Ozd- 
um ceratoniae’’ of Comes; it shows, however, all the characters 
of the conidial stage of £. polygoni. The presence of ordinary 
haustoria on the mycelium proves conclusively that the fungus is 
not to be referred to Phyllactinia. Specimens of “ O. ceratoniae” 
have been issued in Briosa e. Cavarra, Fung. par. no. 238, from 
Sicily, where the fungus is stated to have seriously affected the 
harvest of carob-beans in 1892. The figures here given represent 
fairly well the conidial stage of £. polygoni. The conidia are de- 
scribed as cylindrical (truncate at the ends) and measuring 26- 30 x 
12-14 , and are stated to differ from those of “ O. erpsiphoides” 
