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PHYTOLOGY, 



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TWO NEW BEITISH USTILAGItfE£. 

 Eniorrhiza cypericola (Magnus) Weber, and Melanotcenium 



endogenum Unger. 



By Prof. JAMES W. H. TRAIL, A.M., M.D., F.L.S. 



r ^HE Fungi described below agree in being parasites within 

 X the cellular tissues, especially the cortex of the plants 

 attacked by them, and in producing marked distortion where they 

 are found to occur, but in other respects they are widely 

 different. 



Entorrhiza cypericola is found in swellings at the tips of the 

 rootlets ot J uncus bufonius. The specimens of these swellings, 

 found by me near Aberdeen, were generally white, oval, smooth, 

 or nearly so, and varying from the size of a small pin's head to 

 that of a small pea. In Germany they have been observed like 

 the above, but are often larger, and often branch a little, as if by 

 abortive roots, at the lower end. At the further end of the 

 swelling the root cap may be detected on a careful examination, 

 especially in section. Externally, the growths look much like 

 galls, e.g., such as are formed by species of Anytillulidcc on the 

 roots of various grasses (e.g., Elymus arenarius), and other plants. 

 On making a transverse section of the tumour, it is at once clear 

 that the altered tissue is entirely confined to the parts outside the 

 central cylinder, in which lie the unaltered fibro-vascular bundles. 

 The cells of the cortex are seen to be more or less enlarged, with 

 the long axis of each at right angles to the surface of the roots, 

 except one to three layers of hypoderm, which, like the epiderm, 

 are found to be made up of cells enlarged in directions parallel to 

 the surface. The outer layers, after a time, tend to become brown 

 in colour, rendering the whole tumour brown. In the first-men- 

 tioned cells of the cortex lie many spores of a fungus connected 

 together by mycelium filaments, which, though very delicate, are 

 quite distinct. These filaments are zig-zag or wavy, or spirally 



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