CHAPTEE XXII. 



BORAGE BLIGHT. 

 dEcidium asperifolii, Pers. 



As the disease of barberries, believed by many botanists 

 to be one condition of the fungus of summer rust and 

 mildew of wheat, is popularly known as " barberry blight," 

 it may be well to term the closely allied fungus of the 

 Borage family, which is similarly associated by many with 

 the spring mildew of corn, borage blight. 



The name of the fungus blight found on various plants 

 belonging to the Borage family, and considered by many 

 observers to be one form of the spring rust of corn, is 

 ^Ecidium asperifolii, Pers. The name JEcidiwm is derived 

 from the Greek, and should properly be written (Ecidium ; 

 the word means a little chamber, in reference to the form 

 of the fungus in an infant state, as shown at C in our 

 illustration of the ^Ecidium of summer mildew of corn, 

 Fig. 83 ; asperifolii, refers to the nature of the coarse 

 hairy leaves of several of the Boraginaceous plants on 

 which the JEcidium grows. 



The fungus of spring rust and mildew, already described, 

 is generally common in Britain, so common that persons 

 walking through wheat fields have sometimes had their 

 boots and clothes covered with the orange spores. The 

 SEcidium, on the other hand, said to be one condition of the 

 Uredo and Puccinia, is one of the rarest of British plants. 

 JEddia grow within the tissues of plants, and in these 

 positions they form minute spherical balls, filled with 

 chains of whitish or yellowish, semi-transparent, generally 

 spherical, spores. In the process of growth the immersed 



