GRIFFITHS: CONCERNING SOME West AMERICAN SMUTS 87 
Specimens were collected here on the 7th of May and again on 
the 5th of September, showing the same effect but more pro- 
nounced at the earlier date. 
The smut was especially destructive to Stpa Vaseyi in the 
Raton Mountains of Colorado and New Mexico during the past 
season. 
There occurs in California a well-marked variety of this com- 
mon species on a number of hosts, but it does not seem desirable 
to give it a name until field work determines whether the charac- 
ters are constant, because the spores are not distinguishable from 
some of the common forms. The variation from the typical form 
On various species of the genera Stipa, Agropyron and Elymus is 
in the method of attack. Instead of the sorus being within the 
sheath it occurs on the leaf-blades and inflorescence which are 
more or less distorted by it. The writer has observed this method 
of attack on three hosts in California during the past two years. 
The first collection was made at Cedarville on Puccinellia airoides 
in July; the second on Sitanion longifolium in Jess Valley in 
August, 1902, by myself and Mr. Byron Hunter, and the third 
near Millwood upon two forms of Elymus glaucus by myself last 
June. In the first and last examples, especially, the hosts were in 
a very vigorous state of development and this phenomenon may 
be simply an expression of the vigor of the host. We can hardly 
Suppose that there is difference enough in the structure of these 
Species and their close relatives in the genera Poa and Elymus 
_ upon which the normal form occurs to cause this variation in the 
method of attack. 
Ustitaco Hieronymr Schrét. 
This species is listed on two additional hosts Bouteloua brevi- 
seta Vasey, upon which it was found rather sparingly about 20 
miles east of Roswell, New Mexico, in September, 1903, and B. 
Harvardit Vasey in the Santa Rita Mountains, Arizona, October, 
1902. It is often very destructive to the latter species throughout 
southern Arizona. 
Ustiraco sTRANGULANS Issat. 
This has been observed in but one locality, on Eragrostis Neo- 
Mexicana, in the Santa Rita Mountains, Arizona, near Rosemont, 
