OP THE BLIGHT AND SIMILAR DISEASES. 271 



ensues. The White Garden Rose, Rosa alba, produ- 

 ces, in like manner, an orange- coloured powder. It 

 proves very difficult, in many cases, to judge whether 

 such appearances proceed from a primary disease in the 

 plant, arising from unseasonable cold or wet, or arc owing 

 to the baneful stimulus of parasitical y}^;2^f irritating the 

 vital principle, like the young progeny of insects as 

 above related. Sir Joseph Banks has, with great care 

 and sagacity, traced the progress of the Blight in Corn, 

 Uredo fumenti, Soxverb. Fung. t. 140, and given a com- 

 plete history of the minute fungus which causes that 

 appearance. See Annals of Botany, i;. 2. 51, t. o, 4. 

 Under the inspection of this eminent promoter of sci- 

 ence, Mr. Francis Bauer has made microscopical draw- 

 ings of many similar fungi infecting the herbage and 

 seeds of several plants, but has decided that the black 

 swelling of the seed of corn, called by the French Ergot, 

 though not well distinguished from other appearances by 

 the generality of our agricultural writers, is indubitably 

 a morbid swelling of the seed, and not in any way con- 

 nected with the growth of a fungus. The anthers of 

 certain plants often exhibit a similar disease, swelling, 

 and producing an inordinate quantity of dark purplish 

 powder, instead of true pollen, as happens in Silene in- 

 flata, Fl. Brit. Engl. Bot. t. 164, and the white Lych- 

 nis dioica, t. 1580, whose petals are, not uncommonly, 

 stained all over with this powder. Our knowledge on 

 all these subjects is yet in its infancy ; but it is to hoped, 

 now the pursuit of agriculture and of philosophical bot- 

 any begin to be, in some distinguished instances, united, 

 such examples will be followed, and science directed to 



