1882.] FUNGI INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 159 



winter or other trying times. The small, delicate, non-sexual 

 spores, which are produced with such rapidity and in such great 

 abundance, are for the rapid propagation of the fungus when cir- 

 cumstances are favorable. 



The whole group of fungi is wonderfully strange in all its ways. 

 From the common toadstool, which has the reputation of a most 

 rapid growth, to the small microscopic yeast plant that aids the 

 housewife to make light bread, they are all peculiar and interest- 

 ing. Some are not only fit to eat, but furnish the most delicate 

 morsels to the human palate. Others are our worst enemies, in 

 the shape of human diseases, striking down their victims as a 

 plague, while still others find a field of activity in our grain and 

 other crops, blighting and rusting them until they are almost 

 worthless. The catalogue of com plaint 'that could be laid at the 

 door of fungi is a long one, and the worst of all is the unobtrusive 

 manner of their working, undermining where all without seems 

 strong and healthy. The deadly blow is frequently struck long 

 before the outward effect is apparent, and the victim is beyonp 

 recovery before the " disease " is known to be at work. 



Spurred Rye or Ergot. 



One of the strangest of the injurious fungi which work upon the 

 Farmers' crops, and do much to destroy them, is the Spurred 

 Rye, or Ergot [Claviceps purpurea). This fungus has long been 

 known, and the trouble it has caused to agriculture and to the 

 human family is beyond computation. Like most other fungi that 

 prey upon higher forms of vegetation, the ergot has its favorite 

 place upon the plant it has chosen from which to derive its nour- 

 ishment; in this case it is the grain. Though several species of 

 the grass family develop ergot, it is most frequently found upon 

 the rye. From this fact it has long been called Secale cortiutum, 

 the Latin for "horned rye." These common names, "spurred 

 rye'' and "horned rye," come naturally from the horny texture 

 and peculiar shape of the fungus when it has completed its growth. 

 There is a decided resemblance of the affected or ergotted grain 

 to the spur of a cock, it being hard, pointed, and somev/hat 

 curved. It attacks the grain while it is quite small, and changes 

 its soft substance, starch, etc., into a horny material abounding in 

 a poisonous matter, with a heavy and disagreeable odor. The 

 spurred rye, when fully developed, contains not far from 30 per 

 cent, of an oil to which the offensive odor is largely due. 



