ENDOTHIA PARASITIC A AND RELATED SPECIES. 73 



Morris (56) sums up eight years' observation of the effect of the 

 chestnut blight on 26 species and varieties of chestnuts at Stamford, 

 Conn., as follows: 



Every one of the 5,000 American chestnut trees became blighted * * * 

 None of [the grafted varieties or seedlings of European and Asiatic varieties 

 appear] to be as vulnerable as the American chestnut, but most of mine are 

 now dead. Korean chestnuts and chestnuts from the Aomori regions in 

 Japan resisted the blight until six years of age. Since that time they 

 have shown a marked tendency to blight, but resist it better than does 

 the American chestnut * * * None of the American species of chinquapin 

 * * * has blighted with the exception of two limbs * * * None of the 

 specimens of Castanea alnifolia [or] * * * of Castanea mollissima has 

 blighted, but these latter include only five trees. 



These observations as to the resistance of the oriental varieties of 

 chestnut when grown in America are of particular interest in con- 

 nection with the observations of Meyer in the region where he dis- 

 covered Endothia parasitica native. In his letter to Fairchild, writ- 

 ten from Santunying, China, June 4, 1913, Meyer makes the following 

 notes with reference to the effect of the blight in that region : 



This blight does not by far do as much damage to Chinese chestnut trees as 

 to the American ones * * * 



Not a single tree could be found which had been killed entirely by this 

 disease, although there might have been such trees which had been removed 

 l>y the ever-active and economic Chinese farmers * * * 



Dead limbs, however, were often seen and many a saw wound showed where 

 limbs had been removed * * * 



The wounds on the majority of the trees were in the process of healing 

 over * * * 



Old wounds are to be observed here and there on ancient trees. 



Meyer's photographs taken near Santunying substantiate his state- 

 ments. Certainly no specimens of C. dentata in a blight-infested 

 region in this country could survive to the age of the Chinese chest- 

 nuts shown in his photographs. 



That the Chinese chestnuts are by no means uniformly resistant, 

 however, is clearly shown by Meyer's later notes. On the label of a 

 package of Endothia parasitica collected on chestnut at Tachingko, 

 Shantung, China, March 21, 1914, he writes, "Trees very severely 

 attacked, many dying off," and in a letter written from the same 

 place he says, " A serious canker ; many of the trees here were killed 

 by it," 



Further evidence that the virulence of Endothia parasitica on Chi- 

 nese chestnut differs in different parts of China is found in subse- 

 quent communications from Meyer. From a point near Chingtsai, 

 Chekiang, China, on July 15, 1915, he writes: "All around Hang- 

 chow and west of it one finds the chestnut trees seriously attacked by 

 this destructive bark fungus." 



On July 11, 1915, near Changhua, Chekiang, China, he com- 

 ments, "With the exception of near Taianfu, Shantung, chestnuts 



