126 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



answer to the description of Puccinia porphyrogenita^ and an yEcidiiim 

 on the leaves of the barberry, Berberis vulgaris, will scarcely be any 

 other than jEcidium, Berbericlis. 



A fact of still greater moment is, that some of our cultivated plants 

 are attacked by fungoid foes which, minute as they are, materially 

 diminish their vigor, impair their useful products and, in some in- 

 stances, even destroy their vitality. Raspberries are attacked by the 

 American raspberry rust, Uredo luininata; pea vines, by the pea 

 mildew, Erysiphe Martii; oats and wheat, by the grain smut, Ustilago 

 Carbo; plum and cherry-trees, by the black-knot, Sphasria morbosa; 

 and lettuce and onions by their respective molds, Peronospora gangJi- 

 formis and Peronospora Schleldeniaua. Such fungi must be regarded 

 as injurious to the interests of the husbandman, nor is the pecuniary 

 loss whicii they occasion trivial or inconsiderable. The loss produced 

 by the potato mold alone, Peronospora infestans, abundantly warrants 

 all the effort and study that have been devoted to the investigation of 

 the history of the fungus and to the discovery of some efficient means 

 for preventing its attacks or overcoming their destructive conse- 

 quences. 



On the other hand those fungi that infest noxious weeds and hinder 

 their dissemination and multiplication, must be regarded as the 

 friends and allies of man. Thus the thistle rust, Tricliobasis suaveo- 

 lens^ an early state of Puccinia Comjyositarum, sometimes attacks the 

 Canada thistle with great virulence, and so impairs its vigor as to pre- 

 vent the development of the seeds, thereby checking the propagation 

 and spread of this pestilent plant. So, also, the troublesome bur- 

 grass, Cenchrus tribuloides, is sometimes infested by a smut fungus, 

 Ustilago Syntherismsei which not onl;> prevents the development of 

 the seeds of the gTass but also of the annoying bur-like involucres. 

 It may yet be found practicable to keep down this grass by the artifi- 

 cial dissemination of the spores of its parasitic fungus in those light 

 sandy soils where the grass usually abounds. It certainly is desira- 

 ble that the life histories of these fungoid friends and foes should be 

 better understood than they now are, and that the means of multi- 

 plying or diminishing their numbers according to their characters 

 should be under the control of the farmer. 



■ New Species of Fux\gi, by Chas. H. Peck. — The eight species of 

 fungi here described were collected by Mr. T. S. Brandegee and com- 

 municated to me by Mr. E. A. Rau. The quotations are from the 

 notes of Mr. Brandegee. 



