Studihs on Crown Gall of Plants 401 



e dc' suoi prourcssi." .i paper describing modern discoveries concerning the 

 part the nucleus plays in sexual reproduction in plants, foreign workers 

 (Ikeno. Hirase, Webber, Davis, etc.) being cited freely. Amici discovered 

 the pollen tube growing through the stigma and style into the micropyle. 



Dc Toni"s list of American correspondents began, Smith noticed, 

 "" with the good Dr. Asa Gray." 



At Milan Smith went to the International Exposition grounds 

 and tried unsuccessfully to locate Dr. Ugo Brizi. He would have 

 gone again but Mrs. Smith, suiTering from rheumatic fever, had 

 to be taken to Varese near Lake Maggiore and placed under the 

 care of a physician. Days passed into weeks and Mrs. Smith began 

 to show enough improvement to permit Dr. Smith again to visit 

 the International F.xposition at Milan. He found the plant path- 

 ological exhibit prepared by Giovanni Briosi of Pavia " the only 

 one of any importance. Much care," he wrote in his journal, " has 

 been taken in its preparation and installation. It proved so instruc- 

 tive that a trip to Pavia w^as undertaken at once to talk over 

 matters with him and his assistants," especially the illustrations of 

 " the obscure and wide-spread Italian rice disease concerning the 

 origin of w^hich there [were] at least three distinct hypotheses: 



(1) Voglino's, ascribing it to a bacterial infection of the roots; 



(2) Brizi's, ascribing it to asphyxiation of the roots; and (3) 

 Garovaglio's, ascribing it to a fungus, Pleospora oryzae." He saw 

 also a jar labelled " Bacteriosis del Gelso " which showed mulberry 

 stems bearing leaves. He wrote of it: " The stems are not attacked, 

 neither are the petioles but only the blade of the leaf in numerous 

 irregular small yellow or brown spots, discrete or fused. It looks 

 unlike our bacterial disease of mulberry, which kills the stems 

 after the manner of pear blight." 



At the Orto Botanico of Pavia, " a place," Smith said, "' where 

 they get work done," he interviewed Briosi who told him that at 

 the University of Pavia he has " sometimes as many as 200 students 

 including medical and pharmaceutical students." He met also 

 Rodolfo Farneti who had most of the work in pathology, privat 

 docent Luigi Montemartini who edited Revista d'l Patologia 

 Vegetale, Pollaci, and others. Briosi was still publishing with 

 Cavara their Fungi Exsiccati, and Smith heard with interest how 

 for ten years he had been trying to get an appropriation for a 

 bacteriological laboratory. 



