io4 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



experiments are concerned. If apparently healthy 

 leaves of corn are taken, and apparently healthy leaves 

 of barberry, and these leaves are microscopically 

 examined, fungus mycelium will be commonly found 



Fig. (tg.— CEcidium berbcridis. 



■«0 



Fig. 70.— CEcidium-spore, producing b ; a, Uredo-spore : 

 ideal plan. 



inside the leaves. Neither is the mycelium confined 

 to the leaves, for it invades the seeds of both plants, 

 and these seeds are frequently planted with the myce- 

 lium in their tissues. A diseased progeny is the 

 result. The disease, therefore, is (I say) hereditary 



in both plants, and so widespread that it is extremely 

 difficult to get perfectly healthy examples of either 

 corn or barberry. Now, although I have many 

 times recorded mycelium in the seeds, it has been by 



no means easy to get a 

 record of the perfect fungi 

 within the seeds, and to 

 give a distinct proof that 

 the fungi can really reach 

 and perfect themselves 

 within the membrane, or 

 in or on the enclosed 

 cotyledons of the seed. 



In the " Gardener's 

 Chronicle " for August 22, 

 1885, I illustrated and de- 

 scribed the perfect condi- 

 tion of corn mildew, Puc- 

 cinia graminis, growing 

 within the unbroken mem- 

 branes of the seed of oats 

 (Fig. 71), and now, thanks 

 to an obliging correspon- 

 dent, Mr. George Brebner, 

 of Aberdeen, I am now 

 able to give an illustration 

 of the perfect condition of 

 the fungus of barberry 

 blight, CEcidium berberidis, 

 growing upon and within 

 the cotyledons of the bar- 

 berry. Mr. Brebner for- 

 warded me the living ber- 

 ries with GEcidia within 

 the seeds, and a micro- 

 scopic preparation from 

 which the accompanying 

 illustration (Fig. 69) has 

 been made. 



Mr. Brebner writes as 

 follows : " The sections 

 were made in August 1885, 

 the remarkable feature 

 being that the CEcidium is growing centripetally 

 within the seed. For those interested in the 

 GLcidium-Puccinia controversy any remarks on the 

 bearing of the find would be superfluous. I wish, 

 however, to draw attention specially to the position 

 of the cluster-cups, making it extremely probable 

 that Berberis vulgaris is inoculated by its own 

 CEcidium. Further, the position of these CEcidia 

 spores strengthens the theory that they are resting- 

 spores. The sections were the first ever made by 

 me of a barberry seed, and in consequence the fol- 

 lowing idea forces itself on my mind : ' If a tyro in 

 the science of mycology finds the CEcidium inside the 

 first seed he operates upon, surely this state of 

 matters must be very common ! ' Mr. Worthington 

 G. Smith and others have found much the same con- 



