182 Brand in the Cereals. [Nov. 



V. The Maize Brand. Uredo Maydis, (De CandoUe), U. Zece, 



(^Chevalier.) 



Plate III. Fig. 1—2. 



All the species of brand more or less, cause decisive injury to 

 the organs of the plants which they infest. But the maize brand 

 among all the kinds of brand found in our cultivated grasses, pro- 

 duces the greatest and most extensive local transformations. It 

 attacks all the parenchymatous organs of the maize plant and 

 more or less completely destroys them. The stalk, however, the 

 female and male blossoms, are the parts which it most especially 

 affects. The leaves no longer furnish the great parenchymatous 

 masses necessary for their development, and usually it seizes merely 

 on their lowest parts or also only on the husk bearer. But its 

 development here is already imperfect, and it forms on the leaf- 

 organs, only brand bladders of the size of a poppy seed to a pea. 

 In all the parenchymatous organs however, it developes itself in 

 the form of masses, and in good soil, and in actual cultivation of 

 the maize, I have seen brand bladders of the size of a child's head. 

 Its development is a peculiar one, as it forces out great masses of 

 cellular tissue, formed from the tissue of the mother plant, and 

 similar in formation to the latter. 



Some parts of the organs affected by the brand swell and be- 

 come white. The green color and compact formation of the outer 

 skin gradually passes into a soft watery tissue of a silky lustre; 

 the skin of which allows the large cellular formation to be seen 

 through it by the naked eye. If we more closely examine this 

 pathological product, we find that it consists of tolerably large 

 tender walled substance, the cells of which, like that of the nor- 

 mal vegetable tissue, contain sap, and possess a large slimy cellu- 

 lar kernel sticking on the side. In each of these cells at a later 

 period is secreted a slimy granulous substance, which is yellow- 

 ish, and afterwards brownish, in which still later the brand is de- 

 velofjcd. Prof. Meyen examined this brand formation very criti- 

 cally, and we may here be allowed to repeat his investigations: 



At first is seen in the large and juicy cells of the maize plant, 

 or especially in the pathological cellular substance, the above 

 mentioned little deposites of slime, which are produced on the 

 inner surface of the cellular walls. From these, at fust wholly 

 irregularly-formed, almost transparent deposites, proceed fibrous, 

 dismembered and branching structures, which already exhibits a 

 plant-like form, and which by their later changes more clearly 

 evidence the same. These truly parasitic formations are in the 

 beginning colorless, almost entirely transparent, and only under a 

 strong magnifying exhibit a fine grained organised structure in 



