July 26, 1888] 



NA TURE 



297 



brought in the living fleece of a fine merino ram. The owner of 

 the pasture was cherishing the " wonderful new plant," and was 

 not a little horrified when I took out my knife and carefully cut 

 it down. He was more horrified when I told him what it was. 



The .seeds of >ome of the Indian banians, I believe, require 

 to pass through the bodies of birds to enable them to germinate. 

 A minute bird (Diceum) feeds on them, and is so small that its 

 dropping cannot fall clear of the branch on which it sits, conse- 

 quently it is glued to the !>ark and takes root. Sometimes this 

 takes place on a palm tree ; ihe roots then run down the trunk, 

 and finally smother their host. 



British Consulate, Noumea, May 15. E. L. Layard. 



Indian Life Statistics. 



Although Mr. Hill (in Nature of July 12, p. 250) refers 

 to tiie Holi festival as among possible influences in causing 

 variations of births, he does not say whether he considers lucky 

 and unlucky m >nths and years, which so largely affect marriages 

 in India, as incidents which may have an effect. 



Hyde Clarke. 



TIMBER, AND SOME OE ITS DISEASES. 1 

 X. 



IN the months of April and May, the younger needle- 

 like leaves of the Scotch pine are occasionally seen 

 to have assumed a yellow tinge, and on closer examination 

 this change in colour, from green to yellow, is seen to 

 be due to the development of what look like small orange- 

 coloured vesicles standing off from the surface of the 

 epidermis, and which have in fact burst through from the 

 interior of the leaf (Fig 31). Between these larger orange- 



IG. 3 1. — To the left is a pair of leaves of the Scotch pine, with the blister- 

 like /Ecidia. a. of Peridermium Pini ;var. acicola) projecting from 

 their tissues: these blisters are orange-yellow 111 ojIjut, a.id contain 

 spores, as sh">wn in Fig. 33. Between the blisters are the minute 

 tpermogonia. b To the right is a small branch, killed at a a a by 

 Peridermium Pint (var. corticold), the blister-like yellow Ecidia of 

 the fungus being very conspicuous. (Reduced, after Hartig.) 



yellow vesicles the lens shows certain smaller brownish or 

 almost black specks. Each of the vesicular swellings is a 

 form of fungus-fructification known as an .Ecidium, and 

 each of the smaller specks is a fungus-structure called a 

 Spermogonium, and both of these bodies are developed 

 from a mycelium in the tissues of the leaf. I must employ 

 these technical terms, but will explain them more in detail 

 shortly : the point to be attended to for the moment is 



1 Continued from p. 272. 



that this fungus in the leaf has long been known under the 

 name of Peridermium Pini (var. acico/a, i.e. the variety 

 which lives upon the needle-like leaves). 



On the younger branches of the Scotch pine, the 

 Weymouth pine, the Austrian pine, and some others, there 

 may also be seen in May and June similar but larger 

 bladder-like orange vesicles {/Ecidia) bursting through the 

 cortex (Fig. 31) ; and here, again, careful examination shows 

 the darker smaller tpermogonia in patches between the 

 /Ecidia. These also arise from a fungus-mycelium in the 



Fig. 32.— Blisters {/Ecidia) of Peridermium Pini (var. corticold) on a branch 

 of the Scotch pine : some of the .-Ecidia have already burst at the apex 

 and scattered their spores, l>, b ; the others are still intact. (Natural 

 size, after Hess ) 



tissues of the cortex, whence the fungus was named Peri- 

 dermium Pini (var. corticola). It is thus seen that the 

 fungus Peridermium Pini was regarded as a parasite of 

 pines, and that it possessed two varieties, one inhabiting 

 the leaves and the other the cortex : the " varieties " were 

 so considered, because certain trivial differences were 

 found in the minute structure of the /Ecidia and Spermo- 

 gonia. 



If we cut thin vertical sections through a leaf and one 

 of the smallest /Ecidia, and examine the latter with the 

 microscope, it will be found to consist of a mass of spores 



Fig. 33. — Vertical section through a very young sEcidium of Peridermiutn 

 Pini(vtxr. acicola). with part of the subjacent tissue i f the leaf. //, the 

 mycelium of the parasitic fungus running between the cells of the leaf: 

 immediately beneath the epidermis of the leaf, the enJs of the hypha; 

 give rise to the vertical rows of sp res (A), the ou'ermost of which (/) 

 remain barren, and form the membrane of the blister-like b>dy. The 

 epidermis is already ruptured at / by the pressure of the young 

 sEcidium, (After R. Hartig : highly magnified.) 



arranged in vertical rows, each row springing from a 

 branch of the mycelium : the outermost of these spores — 

 i.e. those which form a compact layer close beneath the 

 epidermis — remain barren,and serve as a kind of membrane 

 covering the rest (Fig. 33,/). It is this membrane which 

 protrudes like a blister from the tissues. The hyphae of 

 the fungus are seen running in all directions between the 

 cells of the leaf-tissue, and as they rise up and form the 

 vertical chains of spores, the pressure gradually forces up 

 the epidermis of the leaf, bursts it, and the mass of orange- 

 vellow powdery spores protrude to the exterior enveloped 



