CARNATION RUST. 101 



a plant's tissues, in which case they cannot be considered the 

 primary cause, but a resulting aggravation. 



"Stigmonose" is the combination of two Greek words mean- 

 ing a disease resulting from stinging or piercing Prof. Woods 

 originated the word and revolutionized the etiology and path- 

 ology of the "Rust" disease. Prof Woods and Dr. Bissy both 

 have ineffectually tried to inoculate a healthy matured carnation 

 leaf with Rust spores; and they had not the power to penetrate 

 the waxy bloom on the epidermis of the foliage. They must 

 find a lodgment in a lesion or puncture to multiply their million 

 spores. Prof. Halstead of Rutters College, N. J., thinks the spores 

 of Rust find lodgment and vegetate in the stoma, or breathing 

 pores of the leaves of carnations. 



It is asserted with microscopic assurance that the gos- 

 samer filaments of Rust roots penetrate every part of the plant's 

 structure, even to their roots, and thus assail the vigor of the 

 plant's constitution, and continue the leprosy in its cuttings. If 

 the ruinous effect of the Rust were confined to the local spots 

 where the blisters appear, it would be robbed of its terrors. But 

 its roots permeate the entire organism of the plant. It feeds as 

 voraciously on the vital essence of the plant as its spores are 

 countless in their numbers. Rust sends out its thread-like roots 

 into every ward of the plant's system, to feed on the sugar and 

 vital pabulum that the plant elaborates to keep alive its vital fire of 

 life, and the plant declines and dies in the merciless grasp of the 

 root-tenticles of this insidious vegetable Octopus. Prof. Woods 

 asserts Rust spores vegetate in lesions of the plant's leaves, I 

 maintain it is in the plants and cuttings by division of its roots. A 

 carnation plant constitutionally effected with this terrible parasite 

 can never be cured. 



Dropping the continuity of the gossamer roots of this Fungi 

 through the structure of the plant's organism and accepting the 

 stage of its development referred to by Prof. Dana, in which seg- 

 ments of these penetrating radicals are seen with a microscope, 

 floating in the plasm of the principal cells of the plant, make 

 it easy to conceive how closely this fungus is associated with the 



