224 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ September 24, 1868. 



it is then their bright and dazzling colours appear to the 

 greatest advantage. We plant in an exposed situation and in 

 poor soil, and our plants are always dwarf and stubby. 



We think that if " J. A." will examine the centre of his 

 plants he will find the variegation appearing even now, and 

 upon those plants which have the plainest and roughest-looking 

 outside leaves. We find the variegation does not appear until 

 the plants receive a check from frost. The specimen leaves 

 we have sent for your inspection are a few of the first variegated 

 leaves which have appeared, and are taken from the heart of 

 the plants. These leaves are but small yet, but by the time we 

 require them for winter decoration they will have attained their 

 fuU size. — Stuart & Mein, Kelso^ N.B. 



FUNGI CONNECTED WITH DISEASE- 

 DARWINIAN THEORIES. 



In his opening address as President of the Biological Section 

 of the British Association, the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, after 

 alluding to personal matters that had hitherto prevented him 

 from carrying out his original intention of instituting a course 

 of experiments illustrative of the theories which have lately 

 been broached by Dr. Hallier and others respecting the origin 

 of cholera and some other formidable diseases, proceeded as 

 follows : — 



Few points are of greater significance than those which touch upon 

 the intimate connection of animal and vegetable life. Fresh matter is 

 constftntly turning up, most clearly indicatiuK that there are organisms 

 in the vegetable kingdom which cannot be distinguished from animals. 

 The curious observations which showed that the protoplasm of the 

 spores of Boti-ytis int'estans (the Potato mould) is at times differentiated, 

 and ultimately resolved into active fiagelliferous zoospores, quite 

 nndistinguishable from certain Infusoria, have met their parallel in a 

 memoir lately pubhshed by Messrs. Famintziu & Boranetzkj', respect- 

 ing a similar differentiation in the gonidia of Lichens belonpiug to the 

 genera Physcja and Cladonia. It is, however, only certain of the 

 gonidia which are so circumstanced : the contents of others simply 

 divide into motionless globules. 



A still more cnrions fact, if true, is that described by De Bary, after 

 Cienkowslry, in the division of Fun^i known under the name of Myxo- 

 gastres or false puffballs. Their spores, when germinating, in certain 

 cases give rise to a body not distinguishable from Amoeba, though in 

 others the more ordinai*y mode of germination prevails. In the first 

 instance De Bary pronounced these productions to belong to the 

 animal kingdom, so striking was tho resemblance ; but in our judgment 

 he exercised a wise discretion in comprising them amongst vegetables 

 in a late volume of Hofmeister's Handbuch. 



The point, however, to which I wish to draw your attention, and one 

 of great interest if ultimately confirmed, is that the gelatinous mass 

 produced either independently, or by the blending of these Amaboid 

 bodies, is increased, after the manner of true Amcebs, by deriving 

 nourishment from different organisms involved by accident from the 

 extension of the pseudopodia. These strange bodies, according to our 

 author, behave themselves precisely after the same manner as those 

 enclosed accidentally in undoubted animals. If this be true, it shows 

 a still more intimate connection, or even identity of animals and 

 vegetables than any other fact with which X am acquainted. 



You are all doubtless aware of the important part which minute 

 Fungi bear in the process of fermentation. A very curious con- 

 tribution to our information on co<jnate matters has lately been 

 published by Van Tiegham, in which he shows that tannin is con- 

 verted into gallic acid by the agency of the mycelium of a species of 

 Aspergillus, to whicli he has s^iveu the name of Aspergillus niger. The 

 paper will be found in a late number of the "Anuales des Sciences 

 Naturelles," and is well worth reading. 



We now come to the subject which I mentioned at the beginning of 

 this address — viz, the theory of Halher respecting the origin of certain 

 diseases. His observations were at first confined to Asiatic cholera, 

 but he has since made a communication to the authorities of the 

 medical department of the Privy Council Ofiice to the effect that in eis 

 other diseases — typhus, typhoid, and measles (in the blood), variola, 

 variola ovina, and vaccinia (in the exanthemes), he has found certain 

 minute particles which he calls micrococci, which under culture 

 experiments give, for each of the above-mentioned diseases, a constant 

 and characteristic fun<^us. He states that in variola he gets the 

 hitherto unknown pycnidia of Eurotium herbariorum ; in vaccinia. 

 Asperj^lus glaucur,, Lk. ; in measles, the true Mucor Mucedo of 

 Fresenius ; in typhus, Rhizopus nigricans, Ehrenberg ; and in typhoid, 

 PenieiUium crustaceum. Fries. He adds that the culture experiments, 

 especially with the vanola diseases, have been so very numerous as to 

 exclude from the results all supposition of accident — that different 

 districts, different epidemics, and different times have given identical 

 results. I am anxious to say a few words about the subject, because 

 most of the reports which have been published in our medical journals 

 give too much weight, in my opinion, to his observations, as though the 

 matter had been brought to a logical conclusion, which is far from 



being the case. I am happy to say that it has been taken up by De 

 Bary, who is so well calculated to give something like a concluaive 

 answer to the question, and also that it has been taken in hand by the 

 medical authorities of our army, who are about to send out two of their 

 most promising young othcers, perfectly unprejudiced, who will be in 

 close communication both with De Bary and Hallier, so as to make 

 themselves perfect masters of their views, and to investigate afterwards 

 the subject for themselves. 



The fault, as I conceive, of Hallier's treatise, is that while his 

 mode of investigation is unsatisfactory, he jumps far too rapidly to his 

 conclusions. It is quite 2>ossible that certain Fungi may occur con- 

 stantly in substances of a certain chemical or molecular constitution, 

 but this may be merely a case of effect instead of cause. Besides, as I 

 conceive, the only safe way of ascertaining what really originates from 

 such bodies as those which he terms micrococci, or the larger ones 

 commonly called yeast globules, is to isolate one or two in a closed 

 cell so coustiucted that a pellicle of air, if I may so term it, surrounds 

 the globule of fluid containing tho bodies in question, into which they 

 may send out their proper fruit — a method which was successful in the 

 case of yeast, which consists of more than one fungus, and of the little 

 Sclerotium, hke grains of gunpowder, which is so common on Onions. 

 Any one who follows the growth of moulds on moist substances, and at 

 different depths, as paste of Wheat or rice flour, will see that number- 

 less different modifications are assumed indifferent parts of the matrix, 

 without, however, a perfect identification with Fungi of other genera. 

 Some of these will be seen in the figures I have given in the 

 '* Intellectual Observer " of different forms assumed by the moulds to 

 which that formidable disease, the Fungus foot of India, owes its 

 origin. This is quite a different order of facts, from the several 

 conditions assumed by the conidiif erous state of some of the vesiculif erouB 

 moulds. As for example Boti^tis Joneaii, which has been ascertained 

 to be a conidiiferous state of Mucor Mucedo, while two forms of fruit 

 occur of the same mould in what is called Ascophora elegans, or the 

 still more marvellous modification which some of the Mucors undergo 

 when grown in water, as evinced by some of the Saprolegni», the con- 

 nection of which was indicated by Cams some fifty years ago, but 

 which has never been fully investigated. 



When Hallier intimates that he has raised from cholera evacuations 

 such a parasite as Urocystis occulta, he should have been content with 

 stating that a form of fructification occurred resembling, but not 

 identical with, that Fungus. Indeed a comparison with authentic 

 specimens of that species, pubhshed by Rabenhorst, under the generic 

 name of Ustilago, shows that it is something very different, and yet the 

 notion of cholera being derived from some parasite on the Rice plant 

 rests very much on the occurrence of this form. But even supposing 

 that some Ui'ocystis (or Polycystis as the genus is more commonly 

 named) was produced from cholera evacuations, there is not a particle 

 of evidence to connect this with the Rice plant. In the enormous 

 collections transmitted by Dr. Curtis from the Southern United States, 

 amounting to 7000 specimens, there is not a single specimen of Rice with 

 any endophytic Fungus, and it is the same with collections from the 

 East. Mr. Thwaites has made very dihgeut search, and employed others 

 in collecting any Fungi which may occur on Rice, and has found nothing 

 more than a small superficial Fungus nearly allied to Cladosporinm 

 herbarum, sullying the glumes exactly as that cosmopolitian mould 

 stains our cereals in damp weather. Ri^ge is occasionally ergoted, but 

 I can find no other trace of Fungi on the gi'ains. Again, when he 

 talks of Tilletia, or the Wheat Bunt, being derived from the East — 

 supposing AVheat to be a plant of Eastern origin, there is no evidence 

 to bear out the assertion, as it occurs on various European Grasses ; 

 and there is a distinct species which preys on Wheat in North 

 CaroUna, which is totally unknown in the Old World. 



I might enter further into the matter, were it advisable to do so at 

 the present moment. All I wish, however, is to give a caation 

 against admitting his facts too implicitly, especially as somewhat similar 

 views respecting disease have lately reached us from America, and 

 have become familiar from gaining admittance into a journal of such 

 wide circulation as " All the Year Round," where Hallier's views are 

 noticed as if his deductions were perfectly logical. 



The functions of spiral vessels, or of vascular tissue in general, have 

 long been a subject of much controversy, and few matters are of more 

 consequence as regards the real history of the distribution of sap in 

 plants. A very alile paper on the subject, to which allusion was 

 made by Dr. Hooker in his address, has been published by Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer (than whom few enter more profoundly into questions 

 of physiology), in the *' Transactions of the Linnean Society." By a 

 line of close argument and observation he shows, from expeiiments 

 vnth coloured fluids capable of entering the tissues without impairing 

 vitality, and that not only in cuttings of plants, but in mdividuals in 

 which the roots were uninjured, that the sap not only ascends by the 

 vascular tissue, but that the same tissue acts in its turn as an absor- 

 bent, returning and distributing the sap which has been modified in 

 the leaves. That this tissue acts some important part is clear from 

 the constancy with which it is produced at a very early stage in 

 adventitious buds, establishing a connection between the tissues of the 

 old and new parts. This appears also from the manner in which in 

 true parasites a connection is established between the vascular tiasne 

 of the matrix and its parasite, as shown by our President in hia 

 masterly treatise on Balanophorte, and more recently by Solms- 

 Laubach in an elaborate memoir in Prmgsheim's Journal. It is 



