ON THE WHITE RUST OF CABBAGES. 117 



enriched. I have purposely confined my remarks to the most 

 common plants, for the sake of pointing out, in passing, tliat 

 intrinsic worth mantled in a plebeian garb is too often passed by 

 unheeded ; and this is true in respect to other matters besides 

 that under consideration. 



X. — Additional Observations on the White Rust of Cabbages. 

 By the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, M.A., F.L.S. 



(Communicated March 4, 1851.) 



An account was given in the third volume of tliis Journal of the 

 white rust with which cabbages and other plants belonging to 

 tlie same natural order are so frequently infested. It was stated 

 that the species of fungus there described and figured is not tlie 

 only one to the presence of wliich the white leprous patches are 

 due, which disfigure the leaves and other organs, and often 

 seriously injure the plant. At the present time, in the district 

 at least in which these observations are written, a large ijoi-tion 

 of the cabbages, which are in a very unhealthy state from the 

 extreme mildness of the winter, are to a great extent frosted with 

 Botrytis parasitica, which is fast destroying the leaves which it 

 has attacked. There is, however, a third production, of much 

 more rare occurrence, to which the white rust is sometimes due, 

 on which I am here about to offer some remarks. It is now 

 nearly thirty years since Dr. Greville figured, under the name 

 of Cylindrosporium concentricum, a little white fungus sprinkled 

 in patches over tlie upper and under surface of cabbage-leaves 

 with somewliat of a concentric arrangement. It was evidently 

 abundant at the time in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, as it 

 was observed by several botanists, but till its recent occurrence 

 in Northamptonshire no one seems to have gathered it since its 

 first discovery in Scotland. Specimens communicated to Sir 

 W. J. Hooker were examined at the time of the publication of 

 the volume of Fungi of the English Flora, in 1836 ; but either 

 they were in a very bad condition, or so mixed with Cystojnis 

 candidus that no correct conclusion could be formed as to the 

 true affinities of tlie plant. Unger meanwhile had supposed that 

 tlie white spots so common on tlie leaves of the common celandine, 

 ground ivy, and other plants, consisting of short moniliform 

 erect threads, were the production figured by Greville, though 

 witliout the slightest authority for sucii a supposition,- and totally 

 at variance with the whole account and figure given by tlie great 

 Scottish cryptogamist. Matters were in this condition when 

 the original specimen was kindly lent by Dr. Greville to the 

 author of the present memoir ; and though almost entirely 

 destroyed, a morsel of the plant was in a sufliiciently good con- 



