CLUB, ANBURY, FINGERS AND TOES 



397 



be made. ' The Cabbage, Charlock, Mustard, and many cruciferous 

 weeds are attacked by the same pest, and in some districts this 

 malady of Turnips is equally bad with the ravages of the fungus of 

 the Potato disease. The protoplasm, or gelatinous formative living 

 material of the fungus, is said to first ramify amongst and within the 

 tissues of the roots of the plants attacked, and to ultimately produce 

 an abundance of spores so small, that more than thirty millions would 

 be required to cover a superficial inch. Diverse opinions have been 

 expressed as to whether the Turnip is first in a bad condition of 

 health, and then easily attacked by the fungus, or whether the fungus 

 makes its attack upon perfectly healthy plants. As a rule, unhealthy 

 and weakly plants are the earliest to fall. The Plasmodiophora 

 belongs to an order of fungi, the Myxomycetes, which, as a rule, live 

 upon decaying vegetable material. Some botanists assert that this 

 fungus will only live on the healthy tissues of cruciferous plants, but 

 this opinion needs confirmation. Very young seedlings are soon 

 attacked by Fingers and Toes, if the seedlings are isolated and treated 

 with water in which the tissue of old Fingers and Toes has been mace- 

 rated. The attack of the disease arrests the growth of the plant. The 

 spores are capable of resting in a 

 state of vitality for a long time, 

 and can easily withstand the frosts 

 of winter. The illustration at A 

 shows the fungus in its proto- 

 plasmic condition, and at B its 

 ultimate sporiferous or seed-pro- 

 ducing condition, or when the 

 protoplasm has changed to a mass 

 of minute spores, enlarged 520 

 diameters. The spores on ger- 

 minating throw out an amoeba, an 

 animal-like mass furnished with a 

 fine thread-like tail, as at C, D, E, 

 and capable of a creeping motion 

 in moisture. When quite free 



from the spores, transparent expansions or limbs extend from the 

 bodies of the amoebae, as at F, G, and when these amoebae reach the 

 roots of cruciferous plants, they take the protoplasmic condition shown 

 at A, and live within the cells, and at the expense of the nurse plant. 

 Charlock, Mustard, and numerous weeds are less seriously damaged 

 by the pest than are Turnips and Cabbages but it is evident that if 



FUNGUS OF FINGERS AND TOES DISEASE 

 Plasmodiophora brassicce 



