lire iioi iiicrciv clicstiints and oaks Imt a coHsidci-aWh* iiuiiiIk*!' uf 

 deciduous trees. \\-\, all lioiiiili lli<' fiiii.uiis lias heeii so well 

 known in Italy, where it is in s(»mic plarr-s cciiaiiily coiiinion, 

 lliei-e is no i-ecord n\ liatcNci- of any scrions disf-asc of I lie rliesi nnt 

 due to it. The elicstnnt, \\lii(li is a tree of ureal erononiical ini- 

 l)ortance in Italy, is snitjcct to a u(»(»d many diseases which have 

 been carefnlly studied l»y the Ilaliaii jtat holoiiists hut, so far as 

 I know, not one has sn.uucsled that any is due l(» the ICndothia. 

 Wvvr it a fa<-t that the lOndothia, whatcvci- s|iecilic name we 

 ]dease to call it, is a species endemic in Italy but not found in 

 North America until the aiipearaiice of the present ei)idemic, we 

 could niulerstand why the fnn.uns miiiht cause a serious disease 

 in this conntry althonuh it causes n(» trouble in Italy, for, if in- 

 fected plants were imported from Euro])e, the fnuiius, as in other 

 well known cases, mi<;ht be transferred to our native chestnuts 

 which nnlike the chestnuts of Italy have not become immune. 



Italian botanists did not and do not regard t heir chest nut En- 

 dot hia as niei-ely an endemic species but considt*r it to lie the 

 same as ^^/ihticrid ntdUniis described by Fries in 1828 from 

 >'ortli American specimens collected by Scliweinitz. We learn 

 from Sclnveinitz, in bis Ntntli American Fnngi, that the species 

 "was very rare on roots of l*'a.uiis in N(»rth Carolina. The syn- 

 onymy is too complicated to be followed here Imt some reasons 

 Avhy it is so c(>m])licateil should be stated. Prior to the piiblica- 

 lioii of N. nnUctdis, Scliweinitz had in 1822 described a SpJiarria 

 (jUrosa from North ('ai-(dina said to urow on Fa;Lins and Juiilans. 

 Later Fries made this si)ecies the type of a new uenus, Endothia. 

 The earlier Italian writers re.uarded N. f/i/iDsa and N. nidifaVis 

 as two distinct species, ai)i)ar(Mitly basing their oi)inion on the 

 fact that Fries placed the two in dilferent sections of the old 

 Licnus SplKKi'ni rather than on an examinat i(»n of American 

 S])eciinens of the two s})ecies. Traverso and some later writers, 

 however, consider that the so-called two species are really only 

 two different stages of a siniile species. It appears to me that 

 their o])inion is (piite ]»ossibly correct, but the ([iiestion can be 

 settled definitely only by an examination of orij>inal Schweinit- 

 zian specimens. Thanks to the kindness of Dr. Stewartson 

 l»rown I have been allowed to examine the specimens in the 

 Schweinitzian Ilerbaiium in the Academv of Xalnral Sciences 



