Mr. Baukn on the Ergot of Rye. 477 
internally, and surrounded with a light shaded purple ring, but is without 
any external membrane or integument, or internal fibres or vessels, which is 
also the case with the scutellum of the embryo of the sound grain. 
In fig. 9 is a longitudinal section of an infected grain, more advanced, being 
about eight or ten days after fecundation; at that period the ergot is consi- 
derably enlarged, and has already torn and detached from its base the integu- 
ments and cellular substance of the original germen. 
After the ergot emerges from its husk, it enlarges very rapidly, and when the 
rye is ripe, the ergot is often five or six times the bulk of the sound grain (see 
Tas. XXXII. fig. 11); and considering that the ergot is only the enlarged 
scutellum, the natural size of which is not quite a tenth part of an inch, it 
must be confessed that the enlargement is prodigious; but not all the ergots 
even in the same ear attain the same size (see Tan. XXXII. fig. 10). The 
general number of ergots in an ear is from six to eight, but sometimes there 
are even more, and very often there is only one single ergot in an ear, the 
rest of ‘its contents being fine sound grains; but in ears which contain 
many ergots the sound grains are generally small and stunted. As the sub- 
stance of the ergot is very soft at its formation within the young germen, it 
generally retains some shape of the original grain, particularly the groove at 
the back. 
After the ergot has emerged from the husk, its substance soon indurates, 
and assumes a dark brownish-purple colour, and gradually becomes very hard, 
and after having been in contact with the air and exposed to the sun for some 
time, the ergot, having no integument, cracks in many places; and I think 
it is such fissures which some authors consider to be perforations made by 
insects,—an opinion, however, which is totally unfounded, for there exist 
no perforations in the ergot at any period of its formation or vegetation. If 
cut through while yet in a green or fresh state, the internal substance of the 
ergot appears of the firmness of an almond or nut. If the ergot is soaked in 
water a month or longer, it gets soft, but never dissolves, and if bruised, the 
substance is found to consist of smaller particles than the albumen of the 
sound grain, and if examined through a microscope under water many large 
blotches of oil appear to be mixed with it, and when an ergot is lighted at one 
end, it burns with a bright flame like a wax candle; this is also the case with 
