251 
Tropica Arrica. Received from West Africa on pods of 
Theobroma cacao, which were also attacked by Diplodia cacavicola, 
P. Henn, 
Kutypa caulivora, Massee in Agric. Bull. Str. and F. M. States, 
ix. 217 (nomen). 
MaAvay. Singapore: Botanic Garden, H. N. Ridley. 
Forming numerous large black blotches on the trunk of a 
specimen of the Para rubber tree—Hevea brasiliensis, Muell.-Arg. 
ther species of Eutypa, as E. erumpens, Mass., and E. gigaspora, 
Mass., are destructive parasites to timber trees, and undoubtedly 
E. caulivora is a tree parasite, although the fruit of the fungus only 
appears on the surface of the trunk when the tree is dead. A 
section of the trunk shows the dark lines formed by the mycelium 
of the fungus extending quite to the centre, and proves that in the 
example under consideration the fungus had been present in the 
tissues for some considerable time previous to the death of the 
tree. Death ensued from starvation, owing to the water supply 
from the root being checked by the copious development of 
mycelium in the water-conducting tissue. It is highly probable 
that the fungus occurs on indigenous trees, and has passed from 
thence to the cultivated rubber trees, which, judging from the 
material received, prove to be admirably adapted to meet the 
requirements of the parasite. A careful search for the presence of 
this fungus on indigenous trees should be made, and its extermima- 
tion attempted, if discovered in localities where the establishment of 
a rubber plantation is contemplated. ; E 
An account of this fungus has been published in the Agricultural 
Bulletin of the Straits and Federated Malay Straits, ix, pp. 216-218, 
from which the following paragraph by the editor is taken. 
“ On two or three occasions we had observed that on dead trunks 
of Para rubber trees, after being untouched for some weeks, the 
outer corky layer of bark split off in flakes and beneath appeared 
large black patches of a fungus. 
“This fungus was in the form of a crust, black, hard and worn 
brittle, about j),—3 inch thick, and looking like dried tar or asphalt. 
It formed rather irregular patches of various sizes from one to ten 
inches across, the edges of the patches being rounded, and the a 
usually longer than broad. In one tree about 25 years old an 
about two feet through, there were no previous signs of any gee 
but the tree rather suddenly died and the fungus came out on t 1 
wood some weeks later. Since then the next tree to it has died, 
much in the same way as if it had been killed by Fomes, one it ont 
not attacked by that. On removing the stump we found that a, 
below the tree was an accumulation of foul-smelling al e 
roots of the tree were quite dead. Several other trees in this ant 
of the garden, but at some little distance, died in a somewhat 
similar manner. None of these, however, so far as I remember 
