NOTES AND QUERIES. 43 



4 feet apart, in a very thin gravelly soil, and quite unprotected 

 from rabbits, which abound in that wood. Of these ninety-five 

 are alive and flourishing, and although there are rabbit runs 

 actually between them, not one has been even gnawed. 



This unpalatable characteristic plus the absence of large side 

 branches, and habit of straight growth, seems to me to make 

 this Finns worthy of more attention, and all the more so if it 

 will thrive in a thin gravel, as it appears to do. 



Godfrey Phillimore, 

 The Coppice, Henley-on-Thames. 



ROSELLINIA ON SpRUCE SeEDLINGS. 



In the last number of these Transactions Dr Malcolm Wilson 

 described a disease of Norway spruce seedlings caused by a 

 species of Rosellinia. This disease was discovered some fifteen 

 years ago in the south of Scotland, and was investigated at 

 the time by Dr Borthwick. As this is the only occasion on 

 which a Rosellinia disease has been reported on spruce in 

 Britain, it is of interest to note that a similar disease occurred 

 during the winter of 1921-1922 on 3-year Sitka spruce seedlings 

 in a nursery in County Galway in Ireland. Specimens of these 

 seedlings were sent to me by Mr A. C. Forbes on 6th January 

 1922. 



The lower leaves of the seedlings and some of the lower side 

 branches were dead and brown, and were smothered by the 

 mycelium and perithecia of a species of Rosellinia, The upper 

 leaves, however, were alive and healthy, and the mycelium had. 

 not penetrated the main stem or the root. The ascospores were 

 unripe and still hyaline, but full-grown and of the canoe shape 

 characteristic of the genus. The asci also showed a swollen 

 apex which stained blue with iodine, another characteristic 

 feature of Rosellinia. 



The dimensions throughout agreed with those given by Dr 

 Wilson, and the fungus appeared in every way to be similar. 



My observations, however, differ from his in respect to the 

 parasitism of the fungus, in that I could find no evidence that 

 it was feeding on the living tissues of the seedlings. The latter, 

 as is natural in a 3-year seed bed, were very dense, the lower 



