52 



ANNUAL KEPORT. 



A FEW COMMON APPLE FUNGI. 



BY PROF. WILLIAM TRELEASE. 



In preparing a paper to be read at a popular convention, like the 

 present, I have assumed that the most satisfactory result will be reach- 

 ed not b}' giving an exhaustive account of one or more injurious spe- 

 cies, but by speaking in general terms of a few forms which are so 

 abundant as to attract general attention, without, however, going be- 

 yond the comprehension of ordinary observers. 



Of late years the increasing damage inflicted upon our crops by the 

 potato mildew, tie grape mildew, the apple scab and a host of other 

 vegetable parasites, has rendered every reader of agricultural journals, 

 and, indeed, every farmer or orchardist of sufficient intelligence to 

 look from effect back after cause, and to consult with his neighbors 

 regarding both, familiar with the word funcjus. Yet many of our 

 most acute observers slip lamentably when they come to speak or 

 write of these pests, for nothing is more common than to find the 

 word fungus applied to anything from a gall on a horse to a knot on 

 an oak tree, irrespective, even, of what a grammarian would call 

 " number." 



The word fungus, as properly used, in- 

 dicates a plant of low organization, hav- 

 ing nothing that can be compared with 

 the leaves and trunk of a flowering plant, 

 and entirely destitute of the green color- 

 ing matter (chlorophyll) to which the 

 higher plants, and, indeed, many of the 

 lower plants as well, owe their leaf-green 

 color. As an English word, although it 

 retains its Latin form, fungus should be 

 rendered in the plural by funguses. To 

 one with dull ears and a glib tongue this 

 plural is proper, and a few of our breth- 

 ren across the waters employ it. But 

 the combination of grunts and hisses 

 that it represents repels the majority of 

 even those who hold that naturalization 

 of a word, as of a citizen, carries with it 

 wftralTJ^"^ "^"^^ ^^ /'u^t-ciarfium ^j^^ ^^^^ ^^ conforming to all customs of 

 its adopted country. For this reason the allowable English plural is 



