THE ASPARAGUS RUST (Puccinia Asparagi, D. C.) 



With stealthy pace, 

 With Tarquin's strides, towards his design 

 Moves like a ghost. — Shakespeare. 



BOUT four years ago a stranger ap- 

 '^^ -peared on the Atlantic coast of 

 ^ this continent manifesting- an un- 

 usually marked partiality for aspar- 

 agus. Clad with invisibility he entered 

 gardens, without arousing resistance, and 

 proceeded quite leisurely to make himself at 

 home w-hile he feasted at the expense of the 

 owner's asparagus beds. The precise date 

 of his arrival, by what steamer he came, the 

 port at which he landed are all unknown. 

 Unheralded, unseen, he went from garden 

 to garden, leaving all untouched save his 

 favorite asparagus. At length his voracity 

 made such havoc with the asparagus beds 

 of some of the cultivators of this valuable 

 esculent in New Jersey that they became 

 alarmed lest their crop should be utterly 

 ruined. Specimens were sent to the State 

 Experimental Station showing the work of 

 the devouring marauder. This was in 

 August, 1896. The station sent out cir- 

 culars, setting forth the cause of the injury, 

 to the several Experimental Stations and to 

 the agricultural press of the country, and 

 found that the asparagus destroyer had just 

 been discovered to be at his work in New 

 England, Long Island, and the State of 

 Delaware. In 1898 he was as far west as 

 Michigan, and in 1899 had arrived in North 

 Dakota. It is therefore possible, even 

 probable, that the marauder has entered 

 Ontario and is now " with stealthy pace 

 moving towards his design," the ruin of our 

 asparagus. 



This destroyer is a parasitic fungus, nam- 

 ed by botanists Puccinia Asparagi, one of 

 the Rusts, a near relative of the Wheat 

 Rust, the Puccinia Graminis, which in one 

 form of its life cycle infests the berberry ; 



but unlike it the Asparagus Rust completes 

 its life cycle solely on the asparagus. That 

 our readers may the more readily detect the 

 presence of this rust should it appear we 

 give a short account of its life history. 



In the autumn dark lines 

 will be found upon the 

 stalks quite visible to the 

 naked eye as shewn by Fig. 

 2029. These lines are com- 

 posed of spores of this fun- 

 \/^\\ ] gus, which are analogous 



to the seeds of flowermg 

 plants. These are the win- 

 ter or final spores, formed 



mf 



m 



Fig. 2029. 



Fig. 2030. 



at the end of the season, in which 

 form the plant, the fungus, passes the win- 

 ter. Botanists have named them Teleuto- 



FiG. 2031. 



