'224 Mississippi Valley Horticultural Socidy. 



serts the grape, and transforms in the ground, emerging in the fall as a bee- 

 tle, in which form it passes the winter. 



Other grapes, more frequently seen about Madison, Wis., and received in 

 ipiantiiy frum other loeali ties, show no sign of insect work, although, as will be 

 seen directly, they are sometimes punctured. They are commonly more or 

 less defornied, often flattened in places, where they are of a brown or gray 

 color, according to the progress the disease has made. In short, their ap- 

 pearance is much as if they had been scorched on these places, which are 

 usually of rounded outline. 



Thi« form of the rot is common on certain of the Rogers Hybrids, and ap- 

 pears to be quite similar to what is known in parts of Europe as Anthrach- 

 nose. .\n examination with a hand lens sometimes reveals nothing but a 

 drying uf the epidermis. Often small black points arc visible in the gray 

 back-ground. Sections of the spots, passing through these points, show that 

 they correspond to the microscopic cavities in the dried skin of the fruit, 

 which contain numerous very small spores or reproductive bodies, charac- 

 teristic of the fungus Phoma uvicula, B. and C, which has long been known 

 in connection with this "dry rot" of the grape. The Phoma is so uniformly 

 associated with this form of the disease in the United States, that it is held 

 by some to be its cause. My own observations are too limited to admit of a 

 positive assertion on this point, but, while the Phoma unquestionably some- 

 times develops on grapes which are already diseased from another cause, 

 some specimens certainly show no injury that I have been able to make out 

 other than that due to this species. 



The gpnus Phoma, to which this fungus belongs, is one of a large number 

 of "f(jrm genera," many species of which are known or at least suspected to 

 be early forms of fruit of species which, in the winter, appear in other forms 

 ami have often been given other names. Like the larvae of insects, these im- 

 perfect forms can sometimes be watched through their transformations, but 

 the work is much more uncertain and diiiicult. Whether P. uvivda is a good 

 species; whether it is a form of one of the many known grape fungi, or 

 whether it belongs to a species, the perfect fruit is as yet unknown, is not cer- 

 tain. Such culture experiments as I have been able to make liave yielded 

 only negative evidence. 



Au'ilher f(jrm of rot which is, i)erliaps, the most destructive of all in Wis- 

 consin, manifests itself by the shriveling of the berries, either when they are 

 about grown or long before. Many of these fall to the ground, while others 

 remain attached to the plant. So numerous are those that sutler, that what 

 were at lirst full, .symmetrical clusters, linally become reduced to irregular 

 btuichcs of scattered fruit, and entire clusters are sometimes destroyed. 



Berries wliich shrivel in this way occasionally show one or more livid spots 

 on their Kurfa<'(;. In soine inst^uices these show no traces of insect injury, 

 but ultimately bear a cr(jp of Phnna uvioia. In (Canada an injury of this sort 

 is caused l)y the grape-seed maggot, which I have not yet seen. In his lirst 

 report, Prof. Kiley described this as the probable larvjc of some curculionid 



