350 
a vauliflower. The flowers also assume monstrous forms. Diseased 
plants should be removed and sulphate of potash applied. 
Tylenchus tritici, Bastian, the cause of “ Ear-cockles” of wheat, 
ig sometimes responsib e for a considerable shortage of the wheat 
crop. e grain, which is the part attacked, becomes changed into 
a roundish, blackish-purple mass, somewhat smaller. in size than a 
normal grain. Asa rule almost every grain in the ear is attacked. 
W 
u 
characteristic manner. A similar temporary wriggling occurs 
when infected grains, that are over fifty years old and have been 
kept perfectly dry all the time, are crushed and placed in water. 
is was at one time supposed to demonstrate the extreme vitality 
of Feo under desiccation. Such eelworms, however, are dead, and 
wriggling is simply due to the absorption of water by their 
dosignated bodies, which causes them to expand, When the body of 
an eelworm is once saturated with water and properly expanded all 
movement ceases. This phenomenon is clearly shown in specimens 
of “ earcockle” grains included in a pioneer work on plant diseases, 
. Edw in pres entitled “Blights of the Wheat, and their 
remedies,” 184 
When Si, grains are sown together with healthy ones, they 
become soft, and the eelworms escaping into the ground make 
their way to ‘the sprouting wheat, and insert themselves under the 
leaf-sheaths, where they remain until the ear begins to develop ; 
when they enter the soft, young grain, and a gall or ear-cockle 
results, 
If seed grain containing ear-cockles is placed in water, and well 
stirred up, the lighter, diseased grains float, and can be skimmed off. 
Aphelenchus olesistus, Ritzema Bos, the Fern eelworm, forms 
brown streaks or patches on the living fronds of various kinds of 
ferns. The shape of the brown patches is determined by the 
venation of the particular fern attacked. Where the veins are more 
or less parallel, as in Lygodium, Pteris, &c, the blotches are long and 
narrow, extending from the mid-rib to the margin of the pinnule ; 
where the veins anastomose irregularly the blotches are more or less 
angular. This is due to the fact that the eelworms in the tissues | 
ofa i. frond cannot penetrate beyond the portion circumseribed 
by av en the air is moist the eelworms leave old patches 
and was adjoining healthy parts through the stomata. When the 
air is fairly dry, this migration is checked. In —— to ferns, 
this eelworm attacks the leaves of many kinds of flowering plants, 
Chrysanthemum, Begonia, Calceolaria, Gloxinia, Coleus, &c, forming 
more or less extended brown patches, frequently mistaken for the 
injury done by Thrips. This eelworm breeds in the soil, and enters 
the leaves of the plants for food only. Treating the soil with carbon 
bisulphide kills the eelworms, but not their eggs, hence the treat- 
ment must be constantly repeated until the pest is exterminated. 
Dusting the under surface of the leaves, and more especially the 
stems near the ground, with a mixture of tobacco powder and 
flowers of sulphur, when moist, will ee the eelworms from 
ascending and entering the tissues. 
Be 
