448 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



That the stellate chlamydospores of Nyctalis asferophora are able 

 to germinate and bring about the reproduction of the fungus was 

 proved nearly one hundred years ago (1831) by Krombholz,i who 

 sowed some chlamydospores on the pileus of a healthy Russula 



Fig. 187.- — Nyctalis asterophora growing as a parasite on Russula nigricans. 

 The host fruit-body owes its blackness to the presence of dark pigments 

 produced by the action of oxydases. The pilei of the younger fruit- 

 bodies of the Nyctalis are still white and fleshy ; but those of the two 

 oldest and largest are fawn-coloured and floccoso-pulverulent, owing 

 to the presence of great numbers of fawn-coloured powdery chlamydo- 

 spores. The mature pilei of N. parasitica, as may be seen here, are 

 hemispherical in shape. Photographed at Cornell University, Ithaca, 

 New York State, by H. M. Fitzpatrick. Natural size. 



adusta and thereby obtained fruit-bodies of Nyctalis asterojjJiora 

 within three weeks. ^ Fifty-eight years later (1889), this remarkable 



^ J. V. Krombholz, Naturgetreue Abbildungen und Beschreihungen der essbaren, 

 schddlichen und verddchtigen Schwdmme, Prag, Heft 1, 1881, pp. 5-6. 



2 The experiment of Krombholz, from the point of view of the phytopathologist, 

 is of peculiar historical interest, in that it is one of the first experiments on record 

 in which an attempt was made to propagate a parasite by sowing its spores on the 

 host-plant. However, it cannot be described as the very first inoculation experiment; 

 for Scholer, in 1816, and Bonninghausen, in 1818, both succeeded in infecting 

 Rye plants by rubbing on their laminae some Barberry leaves which were spotted 

 with the aecidia of Puccinia graminis, the well-known Black Stem Rust Fungus. 

 Vide (1) N. P. Scholer, " En Afhandling om Berberissens skadelige Virkning paa 

 Saeden," Landoekonoyn. Tidende, vol. viii, 1818 ; and (2) C. von Bonninghausen, 

 Moglins Annalen der Landwirtschaft, Bd. IV, 1818, p. 280. 



