MOULD ATTACKING THE COFFEE PLANTATIONS IN CEYLON. 



II. — A Notice of a Mould attacking the Coffee Plantations in 

 Ceylon. By the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, King's Cliffe, Wans- 

 ford. 



(Communicated Sept. 2, 1848.) 



We are daily hearing- of fresh instances of the extensive preva- 

 lence of blight and mildew in various forms in our fields and 

 gardens at home, but it is curious that of late years intelligence 

 has arrived of similar \dsitations from countries of quite a dif- 

 ferent temperature. A few days since a letter dated Peradenia, 

 July 9th of the present year, was received from IMr. Gardner, of 

 Ceylon, to the following effect : "I write in great haste merely 

 to ask you to be kind enough to let me know at your earliest con- 

 venience what species of fungus the inclosed is. It is at present 

 overrunning the greater part of the coffee estates in Ceylon. It 

 is caused by a species of ' scale ' or ' bug,' which first began to 

 appear about five years ago, and it is not till the ' bug ' has been 

 on the trees for upwards of a year that the fungus makes its 

 appearance." 



The leaves are completely covered ^vith a black sooty wash, 

 and the trees must be in a sad plight ; for not only are they smo- 

 thered with the fungus, but they are weighed down with masses 

 of a gelatinous lichen belonging to the genus Collema or some 

 closely allied group, which, though merely forming small radiated 

 black specks when dry, on the application of moisture instantly 

 swells and increases immensely in volume. 



Mr. Gardner's observation that the fungus is always preceded 

 by an insect is exactly in accordance with what often takes place 

 in similar affections here. Nothing is more common than for 

 orange trees and other smooth-leaved exotics to suffer from some 

 form of Fumago, which is in every instance, I believe, preceded 

 by a coccus, except possibly where there has been an exusion of 

 honey-dew, and it appears that the visitation which has been so 

 serious in the orange plantations of the Azores and Madeira has 

 exhibited the same connexion between the plant and insect. 



There is great reason to believe that many of these plao-ues 

 are in the first instance imported, and we know that some vege- 

 table productions of foreign extraction and some insects also 

 become peculiarly luxuriant and abundant in their new cpiarters 

 — a fact which will account in some instances for the sudden 

 rise of visitations which were before unknown. Dr. Morrea 

 has stated his conviction that Botrytis infestans, of which so 

 much has been heard of late years, is an importation, and the 

 notion is at least worthy of consideration. There is a curious 

 prejudice in the "West Indies against all garden-plants, and in 

 the sugar plantations, if the proprietor leaves, the first step 



