526 FETCH : 



Trichosphceria sacchari is found in Java. It may be as well 

 to restate the fact that the Trichosphceria has only been found 

 once ; two perithecia were found at Kew on diseased sugar 

 cane from the West Indies. Howard failed to find it in 

 Barbados, and Went does not record it from Java. Butler 

 states that he found the Melanconium stage of Trichosphceria 

 sacchari twice in India, but he is assuming the unproved 

 connection between the two forms. 



The real argument in opposition is that no one has succeeded 

 in proving any connection between Trichosphceria sacchari, 

 the Melanconium, and Thielaviopsis parodoxa by experiments 

 which are not open to obvious and fatal objections. 



Most of the errors noted above are due to the fact that all 

 the supposed stages of Trichosphceria sacchari are referred 

 to indiscriminately under that name. In leading evidence 

 in support of their connection, it is surely necessary to 

 distinguish the forms which the different recorders were 

 referring to. 



IT.— OBSERVATIONS IN CEYLON. 



Tfie Mycelium. 



Though Thielaviopsis paradoxa was originally described as 

 having two kinds of spores, the one hyaline and the other 

 coloured, all its spores are, ultimately, coloured ; and with 

 few exceptions tliey are oval when mature. When sown in 

 water, the mature spores do not germinate, but in nutrient 

 media they begin to germinate in about five hours. Various 

 nutrient solutions have been tried, but the best in this case is 

 made by boiling sugar cane in tap water ; the solution was 

 usually concentrated until it contained about 6 per cent, cane 

 sugar, but this is not necessarily an optimum for Thielaviopsis. 

 The spores were sown in hanging drops, flasks, and cane- 

 extract-agar plates, as well as on blocks of sugar cane and the 

 stem tissues of the coconut. 



When the spore begins to germinate, the dark, thick outer 

 wall splits longitudinally — sometimes, in oval spores, from 

 pole to pole — and the " germ tube " gradually pushes out 

 through the crack, usually about the middle of the spore. 



