1893.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 33. 231 



other cucurbitaceous fruits, which is accompanied hy and 

 seems to be due to a form o^ Bacterium. It appears to be 

 readily communicated by inoculation, and sometimes causes 

 very serious and rapid loss. 



At various times and in various places the fruits, and 

 sometimes stems and leaves, of the cucumber have been ob- 

 served * to be attacked by a disease of the type now gener- 

 ally termed anthracnose, produced by some of the fungus 

 forms included under the name Glososporiiwi. The forms 

 have been called by difterent names by different writers, and 

 it may be doul)ted whether they are all identical. Some of 

 them appear capable, under some conditions, of great de- 

 structiveness. Nothing is known as to the perfect forms of 

 the fungi in whose life cycles they constitute stages. 



II. A Violet Disease. — Phyllosticta Fzo^ce Desm. 

 In the summer of 1891 my attention was called by W. D. 

 Philbrick, Esq., of Newton Centre, to a disease of cultivated 

 violets {Viola odorata), from which he and other growers 

 had suffered severely for several years. A visit to his and 

 neighboring grounds showed the plants, at that time growing 

 in the field, to be badly attacked. The leaves showed very 

 numerous circular whitish spots, averaging about an eighth 

 of an inch in diameter. In many instances these spots had 

 run together, and in the worst cases whole leaves were cov- 

 ered by the spots and involved in a general decay. From 

 the parts of the field where the trouble was most serious 

 there arose an almost sickening odor of decay, and here 

 nearly every plant was badly affected. It was very notice- 

 able that the most commonly grown variety, the Marie 

 Louise, was the greatest sufferer, while the double Russian, 

 with its stockier foliage, was far less attacked, and the single 

 Russian least of all. Another striking fact, and one which 

 one would hardly expect to be a fact concerning a fungous 

 disease, is that plants growing in the shade of a tree and so 

 protected by it as to be still wet with dew in the afternoon 

 were the healthiest in the field, and showed hardly a trace 

 of disease. The impression made by an inspection of the 



* Gardeners' Chronicle, 1876 : V., pp. 438 and 505 ; VI., pp. 175, 269, 303, 336, 370, 

 - 400, 495. First Report Insect and Fungous Pests of Queensland, p. 175 : 1889. 



