170 FLORA HOMCEOPATHICA. 



surface being tolerably smooth, and whitish or purplish -white. 

 This bloom, which to a greater or less extent covers the violet 



■ 



coat of the Ergot, resembles the bloom of plums, and may be 



readily wiped off. 



According to the late Mr. Quekett, it consists of the 

 sporidia of the Oridium abortifaciens , a microscopic fungus 

 first described by Phillipar in 1837, the sporidia of which are, 

 on the average, about 1 -4000th of an inch long, and 1 -6000th 

 of an inch broad ; but Corda describes it as consisting of two 

 parts, a layer of cylindrical undivided cells supporting the 



spores. 



The nature and formation of Ergot are subjects on which 

 botanists have been much divided in opinion. 



First. Some regard Ergot as a fungus growing between the 

 glumes of grasses, in the place of the ovary. Otto Von Mun- 

 chausen, Schrank, De Candolle, Fries, Wiggers, and formerly 

 Berkeley, adopted this opinion, and described Ergot as a 

 fungus, under the name of Spermcedia clavus (Fries), Clavaria 

 clavus (Munch.), Scleroticum clavus (De Cand.) Fries and 

 Berkeley, however, evidently entertained doubts respecting its 

 nature; for the first suggests that the genus Spermcedia con- 

 sists of u semina graminum morbosa" and the second says, 

 " it appears to be only a diseased state of the grain, and has 

 scarcely sufficient claim to be admitted among fungi as a dis- 

 tinct genus." The latest writer who has adopted this view is 

 Guibourt, who concludes that Ergot is not an ovary or 

 altered grain, but a fungus, which, after the destruction of the 

 ovary , is grafted in its place on the peduncle. Against this 

 opinion may be urged the circumstance noticed by Tessier, 

 that a part only of the grain may be ergotized. Moreover, 

 the scales of the base of the Ergot, the frequent remains 

 of the stigma on its top, and the articulation of it to the re- 

 ceptacle, prove that it is not an independent fungus, but an 



altered grain. 



?/ 



