FUNGOUS DISEASES OF 

 PLANTS 



INTRODUCTION 



A proper study of the fungous diseases of plants is at once sci- 

 entific and practical. The fungi were carefully studied, however, 

 long before their importance as disease-producing organisms was 

 recognized. A history of our knowledge of the fungi in general, 

 therefore, takes us through periods when the scientific and the 

 practical attitudes were not associated ; yet a brief historical survey 

 must develop important and interesting facts bearing upon the 

 relations of scientific work to practical affairs. 



Systematic mycology. A careful study of the fungi as independ- 

 ent groups of plants was begun in the latter part of the eighteenth 

 century, and if we examine the results of the work beginning at 

 that time and continuing into the early half of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, it will be found that this period was one of most accurate 

 and painstaking endeavor in systematic mycology. Much credit is 

 therefore due to the more prominent students of that time, such 

 as Bulliard, Persoon, Nees von Esenbeck, Schweinitz, Leveille, 

 Fries, and Berkeley. The work so well begun was continued into 

 the second half of the same century, and among the names particu- 

 larly associated with that period are those of Fuckel, Karsten, the 

 Tulasne brothers, Corda, and many others. This systematic study 

 has, of course, continued to the present time, although the nature of 

 the work produced has undergone important changes. Two phases 

 in the modern development of this systematic work are well shown 

 by the appearance, on the one hand, of Saccardo's monumental 

 " Sylloge," and, on the other hand, of such complete morphological 

 monographs as Thaxter's " Laboulbeniaceae." 



