M. MITRA 221 
HIstoRY AND DISTRIBUTION. . 
The disease was first described in 1876 in Parma by Professor Passerini 
as occurring on leaves of maize. Since then it has been found in the north 
of Italy! and has been recorded in South Europe, France, Russia, England, 
the United States of America, Japan, China,? the Philippine Islands, New 
South Wales, Queensland, and India (Bihar, Dharwar, Almora and other 
parts of the United Provinces, Bengal and Burma’. 
In the United States of America it was noticed as early as 1889. In 
Southern France it was observed in 1903, in India (Bihar) in 1907, in South 
Africa in 1912, in Australia. in 1915 and in the Philippine Islands in 1919. 
Most writers have merely recorded the disease and have made no attempt to 
prove the parasitism of the fungus. 
Serious damages have been recorded from various countries, viz., Sonth 
Africa’, the Philippine Islands*,°,6 and Italy. Robison’ recorded it from 
the Philippine Islands and Otto Reinking',® described it (1919) as a common 
and at times very destructive disease in Philippine Islands. He says that the 
disease is more severe on newly introduced corns which are not acclimatized 
and are in a weakened condition and that native corn is not severely attacked. 
He found a black mould on the male inflorescence also which Saccardo has 
determined as H. curvatum but which resembles H. turcicum very closely. 
It has been described as a serious and destructive disease in Delaware by 
Chester and Smith® (1903) and by Ducomet’ (1903) in Southern France. 
Anon! (1915) reports it to have caused severe loss in New Scuth Wales in 
localities with heavy rainfall and hot steamy weather. 
It is a difficult disease to check and no proper treatment is yet known. 
Smith believes that spores may be able to live after passmg through the alimen- 
tary canal and so manure from an animal excreta may prove 2 source of 
infection. Anon recommends rotation and use of more leguminous plants. 
1 Loverdo, J. ‘*‘ Maladies Des Cereales,”’ p. 279, 1892. 
2 Otto Reinking. ‘* Diseases of the Economic Plants in Southern China.” The 
Philippine Agriculturist, 1919, vol. VIII, no. 4. 
3 Pole Evans. Report of Plant Pathologist and Mycologist in Ann. Rep. S. Afr. Dept- 
of Agrt., 1912-13. 
# Otto Reinking. “Philippine Economic Plant Diseases.’ The Philippine Journal of 
Science, A., vol. XIII, no. 5, 1918, p. 251. : 
° Otto Reinking. “Philippine Plant Diseases,” Phytopathology, vol. TX, no. 3, 1919, p. 1-0. 
® Robinson. ‘Corn Leaf Blight in the Philippines.” Phil. Agri. Rev., TV, p. 350. 
7 Loverdo, J. loc. cif. 
’Chester and Smith. ‘Notes on Fungus Diseases in Delaware’ Delaware Expt. Slat. 
Bull. on. 63. 
° Ducomet, V. “The Browning of Maize in France.” Jour. Agri. Prat., N. Ser., 5 (1903), 
no. 16, pp. 507-511. (Only abstract seen in Expl. St. Rec, of U.S A.) 
’” Anon. “ Blight in Maize.” Agri. Gaz. N. S. Wales, 26 (1915), no. 5, p. 338. 
