The Fungus Pests of certain Flowers 



about gardens are a common cause of disease in cultivated plants. 

 It often happens that a weed, being sturdy, is only slightly incon- 

 venienced when attacked, whilst a cultivated plant will speedily 

 succumb if attacked by the same fungus. This is the case in the 

 Sempervivum disease. In this country the common House Leek is 

 the nurse-plant, and is seldom much injured; but if the disease 

 Endophyllum sempervivi gets amongst greenhouse species, every 

 plant may be utterly destroyed. 



Gladiolus, Crocus, Narcissus, and Lily Diseases. In 



certain soils and situations where the ground is heavy and the atmo- 

 sphere inclined to be humid the 

 Gladiolus is very subject to a de- 

 structive fungoid disease. This 

 is especially the case during 

 unusually wet summers. The 

 disease attacks the corm, and 

 corrodes and decomposes the 

 tissues, so that on cutting open a 

 corm the whole interior, or such 

 parts as are diseased, will be found 

 permeated with a deep, foxy co- 

 lour. It is believed by some per- 

 sons that one stage of this disease 

 is identical with the disease named 

 * Tacon ' by the French, and in 

 this country known as ' Copper 

 W&J Rhizoctonia crocorum. This 

 Rhizoctonia is a mere spawn or 

 mycelium, a mass of rusty-brown 

 material like a thick coating of 

 spider's web of a red tint. This 

 parasite attacks the Crocus FUNGI O p GLADIOLI, LILIES, ETC. 



(especially C. SativUS\ the Nar- Urocystis gladioli wa& Ovnlarta elliptica. 



cissus, Asparagus, Potato, and 



other plants. Immersed in the softer and damper portions of the red 

 substance of the corm may frequently be found great numbers of 

 large compound spores, as illustrated at A (enlarged two hundred 

 and fifty diameters). These bodies belong to the fungus named 

 Urocystis gladioli-, but whether they really belong to the spawn 

 named Rhizoctonia there is no conclusive evidence, as the spores 



429 



