118 



HETERCEOISMAL FUNGI. 



TnK word heteriiecisra, though compact and convenient enongh for technical use, 

 will, we fear, not be accepted without protest by those wlio dislike to be troubled 

 with hard words. It is applied to those fungi which grow, in one stage of their 

 existence, on one plant, and in another stage on another, generally on quite a 

 different plant. If the metaphor may be allowed, the fungus in these cases has a 

 town residence and a country house, the two houses being as unlike as houses can 

 be, and the resident, when he takes up his abode in the country, dons quite an- 

 other costume from that which he wears in town, and vice versa. This is heter- 

 ificism, and if any reader can suggest a sufficiently expressive English word to 

 replace the Greek one we should be glad. The most familiar case of the kind is 

 that of the mildew of the Wheat, and the cecidium of the Barberry, lately illus- 

 trated by Mr. Plowright.* The experiments there detailed are not the only ones 

 conducted by Mr. Plowright, and in the current number of the GrevUlca we find 

 the following summary, which is so important that we reproduce it and add a 

 tabular list of the experiments with their results. In the first column we have 

 placed the name.s of the plants infected, in the second the name of the fungus by 

 which they were infected and its source, and in the third cohnnn the name of the 

 fungus which resulted. 



It is clear that the names in the second and third columns refer to the same 

 plant, and therefore, according to ordinary rules, one or the other should be sup- 

 presi-ed, preference being given, other things being equal, to that which enjoys 

 the right of priority. But luider such very extraordinary circumstances it is 

 difficult to lay down a rule. Certainly we shall not attempt to do so. Botanists 

 may ^vell be forgiven for having applied different names, for who could have 

 dreamt of such a state of things as is now proved to exist ? Who, for instance, 

 could have supposed that the fungus on the Groundsel was the same as that which 

 occurs on the Fir '! 



Gardeners' Chronicle, January Gth, 1883. 



' lyool/iojitf TyunsaciioKS, page nS, i;t so/., iSSi. 



