266 DISEASES OF MAIZE. 



all the parenchymatous organs of the maize plant, and more or less completely destroys 

 them. The stalk, however, and 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 become 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 

 normal vegetable tissue, contain sap, and possess a large slimy cellular kernel sticking on 

 the side. In each of these cells, at a later period, is secreted a slimy granulous substance, 

 which is yellowish, and afterwards brownish, in which still later the brand is developed. 

 Prof. Meyen examined this brand formation very critically, 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 first wholly irregu- 

 larly formed, almost transparent deposites, proceed fibrous, dismembered and branching 

 structures, which already exhibit 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 power exhibit 

 a fine-grained organised structure in their tender slimy substance ; but soon it is observed 

 that particular boughs of this little plant are branched out; and in individual cases, yet 

 more developed, branches and twigs stand closely crowded together. At the same time 

 with this branching, the fibres are already partially separated into small globular bodies, 

 sometimes at the base, and sometimes at the point of the fibres ; but for the most part 

 their little side branches first separate off themselves. Many fibres are wholly changed 

 into little branches in a wreathed form, which still hang together. They are originally 

 ellipsoidal, and then become more or less globular ; are at first of a yellowish and after- 

 wards of a brownish color, and at last brown. But they likewise separate themselves from 

 the branches producing them, and often before they have reached their normal size, which 

 follows after their separation as it were by a sort of after ripening. By and by all the fibres 

 fall away into such spores or grains of brand ; by and by, too, the cells of the diseased 

 vegetable substance are destroyed; and if we carefully cut through lengthwise (Fig. 1, b) 

 the brand-bladders not yet opened or sprung apart (Fig. 1, a) , we find that the white 



