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plants ; whereas, to the best of my memory, there were not any green plants at 
first. 
This red snow occurs in Rabenhorst’s Flora Europea Algarum under the 
euphonious title of Chlamydococcus nivalis. He gives the same genus to pluvialis, 
placing them both in the family Volvocinee, but Protococcus viridis he classifies 
under the family Protococcacee, thus widely separating them, not only as to genus, 
but wider still, as to family. 
THE FUNGI WHICH ATTACK WHEAT. 
By the Rev. J. E. Vizze—Read October, 1881. 
THESE vegetable forms may be divided into two sections, those which injure the 
corn itself, and those which find support upon the straw. The most fatal to the 
wheat itself is Tilletia caries (Tul.), called bunt. It is generated in the ovary of 
the wheat at a very early stage of growth, before the ear has appeared outside the 
sheath. Bunted ears of wheat are not difficult to detect at a glance from healthy 
ones, because the disease has the property of making the plants attacked by it 
much more luxuriant than they otherwise would be. The result of the ovary 
being thus attacked is that instead of the grain of wheat being filled with starch, 
a powdery paste is produced, which, in an early stage, when squeezed, is very 
offensive to the smell. The spores of Tilletia when in the young state have short 
hyaline pedicels, which, however, disappear as the spores become dry and ripe. 
Tf the fungus be very abundant, the damage done to the crop is calamitous to the 
farmer, as the wheat is almost unsaleable, except, as has been remarked, to those 
who make inferior gingerbread, in which case the black spores of the bunt only 
make the gingerbread a little darker, the unpleasant taste being concealed by the 
sweetness of the treacle used. 
The fungus next to bunt as to damage in wheat is smut, Ustilago carbo (Tul). 
This is not so important as the Tilletia, because the dusty spores burst their cases 
much more easily, and so get scattered ; also in the threshing machines, as well as 
the winnowing fans of the flour mills, they are separated from the wheat. Still, 
they are unsatisfactory, not only to the general look of the growing crop, but also 
to the fact that the ear of wheat would be much better and more profitable if filled 
with flour than with a densely black powder. Smut is the dusty mass into which 
the substance of the receptacle of the germen, and the base of the glumes is con- 
verted. The relative sizes of the spores of bunt and smut, as shown by the micro- 
scope, are—smut, ‘0002 of an inch; bunt, ‘0006 of an inch. The former are simple, 
the latter reticulated, and therefore more pleasing to the sight. One contrast 
between these two fungi is that you may inoculate an ear of wheat with the spores 
of bunt successfully, but you cannot do so with smut. 
As to the fungi which attack other parts, the next in importance as to injury 
