4i0 



NOTES ON UROMYCES AMYGDALI, COOKE : A 



SYNONYM OF FUCCINIA PRUNI, PERS. 



(PRUNE RUST). 



By D. McAlpine. 



(Communicated hy J. 11. Maiden.) 



(Plates XXXI., lower division, xxxii. and xxxiii.) 



I have purposely placed the synonym first, because the fungus 

 which it represents is still considered by Dr. Cooke, one of the 

 authors of the name, a new one, and it will be part of the object 

 of this paper to show that the Australian species thus named in 

 Dr. Cooke's " Handbook " is really the same as that described by 

 Persoon in his "Synopsis Methodica Fungorum" towards the end 

 of last century. 



This leaf-rust is of great economic importance, since it attacks 

 such valuable fruit trees as the peach and nectarine, plum and 

 apricot, cherry and almond, causing them prematurely to shed 

 their leaves, and, as a consequence, either to bear no fruit or only 

 small quantities of an inferior kind. As the peach-tree forms its 

 fruit on the previous season's wood, it is evident that the succeed- 

 ing crop will be affected as well, hence it is highly desirable to 

 know the true nature and the right affinities of this fungus, 

 thereby to be the better able to follow its life-history and to 

 prevent its further spread. 



History of Name. 

 • 



The Australian fungus to which Dr. Cooke assigned the name 

 of Uromyces amygdali was collected by H. Tryon, Government 

 Entomologist of Queensland, in February, 1886, on peach and 

 almond leaves, and forwarded almost immediately to Dr. Cooke 

 for identification. As indicated in his " Handbook of Australian 

 Fungi," this name had previously been used by him in Ravenel's 

 "Fungi Americani Exsiccati," issued between 1878 and 1882. 



