PHYTOLOGY. P 



NOTES ON ERGOT. 



By A. STEPHEN WILSON 



, F. C. S. SX U 



THE investigations of the Messrs. Tulasne have left little 

 of an obvious character to be gleaned on the subject of 

 Ergot. But the following notes of observations and experi- 

 ments may be of some use to any one who desires to enter on 

 this branch of mycology. 



In those localities of Aberdeen and Kincardine which I have 

 examined, about twenty of the grasses are usually ergotised. 

 Whatever may have been the case anciently, when the land was 

 undrained and full of gramineous weeds, and the crops perhaps 

 later, at the present day cereal rye is very rarely ergotised. I 

 have searched whole fields without finding a single spur. It is 

 therefore obvious that some of the conditions under which rye 

 is grown in France (from which the Ergot of rye for medical 

 practice is derived), are different from those under which it is 

 now cultivated in the north-east of Scotland. But whether the 

 absence of Ergot on rye in Scotland, as compared with France 

 and other places, is due to a cultivation which destroys the 

 Ergot ; or whether it results from the fruit of the Ergot not 

 being ripe in Scotland "when the bloom is on the rye" to the 

 same extent as on the Continent, I am not aware. But the 

 quantity of Ergot which can be found almost any autumn, on 

 the various grasses of this country, would probably be found 

 equal to the demand. The smaller Ergots are more compact 

 and less fractured than those of rye, and would probably better 

 preserve whatever qualities they possess. These Ergots are 

 worth a practical trial. 



The grasses most liable to be ergotised are the common rye 



* Read at the Conference of the Cryptogamic Society of Scotland, Sept. 

 30, 1875. 



