THE LARCH CANKER 2i 



from the bark '. (iv) The disease occurred most frequently 

 in damp situations, (v) Berkeley observed that the Peziza 

 also occurred on many dead branches and on branches that 

 had been left on the ground after thinning. 



Recent authors have commonly lost sight of the fact that 

 canker was first attributed to its true cause by an English- 

 man, and Berkeley's article has often been ignored by 

 wi'iters who have taken their descriptions from the more 

 detailed papers of the German professors Willkomm and 

 Robert Hartig. Willkomm 's ^ treatise, published in 18(57, 

 is, for the time at which it was written, a remarkably full 

 account of the parasitology and pathology of the disease. 

 But it is marred at the outset by an inaccuracy in nomen- 

 clature, which he would have avoided had he been acquainted 

 with Berkeley's article. His descrij)tion and figures leave 

 no doubt that he was studying the fungus Dasyscyplm 

 calycina, but he confused this sjDCcies with another fungus, 

 Cortkiuni aniorplbunij^ a Basidiomycete, belonging to an 

 entirely different group of fungi, which has a superficial 

 resemblance to Dasyscyplia and may sometimes be found 

 growing with it. If this error in nomenclature be corrected 

 throughout the paper, the reader will find an accurate 

 record of much that was not previously known about the 



^ Moritz W. Willkomm was bora Jmie 29, 1821, at Hewigsdorf near 

 Zittau. He studied medicine and science at Leijjzig. He travelled over 

 a great part of Europe, taking a special interest in field botany, and vvrolu 

 extensively on tlic tlora of Spain and Portugal. He took liis Ph.D. at 

 Lei2jzig in ISoO and remained there as a Privatdoi^ent. In 1855 he was 

 created extraordinary professor and custodian of tlie herbarium. Soon 

 after lie was appointed professor of biology in the Forstakadcmie at 

 Tharandt, where lie remained till 18G8, when he proceeded to Dorpat as 

 director of tlie botanic garden. In 187-1 he went to the Ocrman university 

 at Prague and stayed there till 1893, when he retired. He died in Bohemia 

 in 1898. Willkomm is chiefly known for his writings on the flora and 

 ecology of Spam and Portugal, but he published papers on many other 

 botanical subjects. His Mlcroscopischtii Ftltidt is, as far as I am aware, 

 his only contribution to pathology (vide All(j. Deutsche Biographie, Bd. iJ, 

 1898). 



^ Hollman (1868) was the first to call attention to this error. He 

 correctly named the fungus Peziza calycina. 



