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BACTERIAL DISEASES OF PLANTS 



would be very easy to make this mistake in the early stages of 

 the investigation. I made it myself. 



Macchiatti's name Bacillus cubonianus, is earlier by one year 

 than Boyer and Lambert's name, but unfortunately he made no 

 inoculations and ascribed to his organism characters definitely 

 excluding it from any role in the causation of the mulberry dis- 

 ease here described, i.e., formation of endospores, presence of a 

 capsule, yellow color on media, liquefaction of gelatin, etc. His 

 name, therefore, may be reserved for consideration in connec- 

 tion with the Italian disease, in case there should be one different 

 from the French disease. According to Macchiatti the behavior 



FIG. 267. Branch of Morus alba (white mulberry) attacked by Bacterium mori. 

 September, 1913. After Arnaud and Secretain. 



of his Bacillus cubonianus is very typical on potato where from 

 the beginning there is a rapid growth with the formation of large, 

 slightly raised, sinuous-margined colonies having a yellow color, 

 which becomes ever more intense with age. 



Boyer and Lambert's Bacterium mori is therefore the earliest 

 available name for the cause of this disease. We must either 

 accept that or devise some entirely new name. It is almost a 

 nomen nudum, but not quite, since it was isolated from diseased 

 (blighting) mulberries and has a definite if inconsiderable history 

 of pathogenicity attached to it, as the result of successful inocu- 

 lations. In my first paper (1910), therefore, I felt entirely free 

 to retain their name and to attach to it a description drawn from 



