Norton — The Kansas Ustilagineae. 231 



I. USTILAGO. 



1. U. Sorghi (Link) Pass., Thum. Herb. Myc. Oec, n. 63. 



(Plate XXV. 1-5.) 



Common on cultivated Sorghum sp. ; on Kaffir corn, Man- 

 hattan (Kellerman); and on broom corn, Phillipsburg; also 

 reported from other places on the latter. The smut usually 

 fills every ovary on the affected plants, which are smaller than 

 unsmutted ones. 



The spores germinate in water in six or eight hours and 

 produce promycelia 20-35 p. long and about 6 y. wide. In 

 many cases where the water supply was not so abundant, 

 long germ-tubes narrower than the promycelium and 500 or 

 more fx long, were produced, the protoplasm following the end 

 and the remainder of the tube divided by septa into cells 

 about three diameters long. Knee joints occur in abundance 

 and there were also a few bow joints. Conidia few. 



In nutrient solutions each germinated spore is soon sur- 

 rounded by a mass of extensively branched promycelia bearing 

 many conidia. No germ-tubes or fusions are produced until 

 the solution becomes exhausted, then long threads grow out 

 from the promycelia and conidia as in water. 



2. U. Ischaemi Fuckel, Enum. Fung. Nass., p. 22. 



In the deformed inflorescence of Andropogon provincialis. 

 The stems are shortened and the smutted flowers inclosed in 

 the upper leaf sheath. The specimens are from Mr. Bar- 

 tholomew of Rooks Co. He says the smut is undoubtedly 

 perennial as it appears from year to year on a single plant on 

 his farm. 



I have not tried germination as all my material is several 

 years old. The germination is described and figured by 

 Brefeld.* 



3. U. Austro- Americana Speg., Fungi Argentini, IV. n. 



45, p. 10. ( !) (Plate XXVIII. 9-12.) 

 Forming large hard masses in the inflorescence of Poly- 



Untersuchungen, V. p. 961, T. XI. f. 1-2. 



