CHAPTEK XXI 



SMUT FUNGI USTILAGINES 



It was at one time so customary to associate the Ustilagines 

 with the Uredines that it would have been thought that some 

 close bond of union existed between them, instead of which 

 they have really no closer affinity than the fact of their being 

 alike parasites upon living plants. In the days when the 

 Coniomycetes were accepted as an order of Fungi, on the basis 

 that they produced spores, on more or less distinct sporophores, 

 with the threads, or hyphae, obsolete, or nearly so, then the 

 Ustilagines and Uredines were associated with the Sphae- 

 ropsideae as members of that order. It was then contended 

 that this division was distinguished " by the vast predominance 

 of the reproductive bodies over the rest of the plant, if not in 

 size, at least in abundance, and from the ease with which in 

 general they fall from the point of attachment, in consequence 

 of which, as the name implies, they have a dusty appearance, 

 and often soil the fingers of those who handle them."^ No 

 longer can so artificial an association be recognised, and whilst 

 the Sphaeropsideae hold lower rank as imperfect forms, the two 

 groups of Ustilagines and Uredines maintain independent 

 positions, as autonomous, within certain restrictions. Tulasne 

 contributed much to the better knowledge of the Ustilagines 

 in 1847, to which Fischer de Waldheim, with Brefeld and 

 others, have contributed since. How far these organisms 

 differ from the Uredines must be gathered from a comparison 

 of the present with our chapter on the latter group. 



It must be premised that these are pustular Fungi, which 



^ Introduction to Cnjptugamic Botany, l>y M. J. Berkeley, London, 1S57, p- 

 315. 



