10 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL, SOCIETY. 



Fungi. 



By William C. Stukgis, Ph. D., Mycologist of tbe Connecticut Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, New Haven. 



The subject upon which I have been asked to address you is a 

 mauy-sided one, and after accepting the invitation conveyed to me 

 by your Committee, I found myself somewhat at a loss to decide 

 from what standpoint — morphological, systematic, or economic — 

 you would desire me to treat that vast and complex group of 

 plants which we call Fungi. I finally concluded that I should not 

 go far astray if I attempted to present the subject in its economic 

 aspects, and confined myself largely to a consideration of the 

 cause, nature, and means of prevention of fungous diseases to 

 which many of the highei' plants are liable. But inasmuch as 

 some degree of knowledge concerning the nature, habits, and 

 affinities of the fungi themselves is essential to any understanding 

 of the means which have proved successful in combating their 

 attacks, I am compelled, even at the risk of being tedious, to 

 touch upon these points, and to follow the example of the small 

 boy who, when asked at dinner whether he would take pie, 

 pudding, or jam, answered that he would take as large a portion 

 of each as was compatible with the time at his disposal. 



We might open our subject then, with the question. What is a 

 fungus? Not long ago a friend of mine was lecturing at a 

 farmers' institute upon fungous diseases of plants, and after he 

 had finished and had invited questions, an intelligent farmer in the 

 audience requested to be informed " how he could catch them in 

 their holes." The lecturer was non-plussed for a moment until 

 further investigation elicited the fact that the inquirer had in mind 

 the depredations of woodchucks, under the impression that 

 " fungi" is a technical term for any and every agency destructive 

 to vegetation. Again, I received last month a letter from a lady 

 of agricultural tastes, informing me that she had discovered "a 

 remedy for thwarting the ravages of the parasite known as the 

 ' Fungi ', and causing it to become extinct." I fear what the 

 consequence might be of informing her of the fact that there are 

 at present more than forty thousand species of described fungi. 

 Our inquiry as to the nature of a fungus is therefore a pertinent 

 one. 



All known plants are divided into two great groups — the 

 Phienogams, which include all the large vegetation of temperate 



