MELAM PSORA 357 



Flax ; the spermogones are flask-shaped, subepidermal, without ostiolar 

 filaments, the secidia are small and apparently difficult to distinguish. 

 X" other author seems to have met with these, unless the structures to 

 which Fischer assigns a "parenchymatous peridium" were such secidia. 



It would keep the disease in check if infected Flax plants were pulled 

 up and burnt as soon as seen, but such a remedy is impracticable on a 

 large scale. No really immune varieties of Flax are known, but fortunately 

 the parasite seems not to occur in the Irish flax-fields. 



Distribution: Europe, North and South America, Australia. 



15. Melampsora vernalis Niessl. 



Uredo Saxifragarum DC. Flor. fr. vi. 87. Cooke, Handb. p. 525 ; 



Micr. Fung. p. 215. 

 Caeoma Saxifragae Wint. Pilze, p. 258. Plowr. Ured. p. 259. 

 Melampsora vernalis Niessl, in Wint. Pilze, p. 237 (1881). Plowr. 



Gard. Chron. 1890, viii. 41 ; Jour. Roy. Hort. Soc. xii. p. cxi ; 



Trans. Brit. Myc. Soc. i. 59. Sacc. Syll. vii. 592. 

 M. Saxifragarum Schrot. in Cohn's Krypt. Flor. Schles. p. 375 (1887). 



Fischer, Ured. Schweiz, p. 511. 



Spermogones. Scattered, yellow. 



yEcidiospures. Cseomata small, elliptic, flat, solitary, golden- 

 yellow; spores in chains, roundish, finely verruculose, 17 — SO p. 



[ Uredospores. Sori epiphyllous, very small, round ; spores 

 ellipsoid, echinulate, golden-yellow, 16 — 20 x 15 /a.] 



Teleutospores. Sori densely clustered, subepidermal, small, 

 irregular, chestnut-brown ; spores oblong to clavate, yellowish- 

 brown, 40 — 50 x 14 ix. 



On Saxifraga granidata. Rare. June — September. 



Plowright states that, on the specimens collected by Mr James Taylor 

 at Clark Farquhar, N.B., in June, 1890, the teleutospores were found on 

 the lower leaves and stems, and there were no uredospores. The descrip- 

 tion of the latter is after Voglino and Fischer, and may not belong to the 

 British species. The connection of the cseoina with the teleutospores has 

 been proved by Plowright and Dietel. 



Distribution : Germany, Switzerland, Italy. 



