178 DISEASES OF FIELD & GARDEN CROPS. [CH. 



had rust or Uredo upon it. As these plants were, however, 

 exposed to the air for fourteen days, an element of doubt 

 is admitted, although an equal number of check plants grown 

 in the open air in the same garden remained free from rust. 

 (The italics are ours.) That they did not contract the 

 parasite from the barberries in my garden is clear from 

 the fact that there were no AUcidium spores there until 

 many days later." Surely the evidence in. this test case 

 shows, if it shows anything, that Mr. Plowright really and 

 truly produced the Uredo from the Puccinia spores. He 

 admits there were no ^cidium spores ; he experimented 

 with germinating Puccinia spores only, on wheat, and 

 Uredo was the result. Bonninghausen gave the time of 

 the appearance of the disease after infection as five or six 

 days ; Mr. Plowright states twenty or twenty-two days. 



The gentlemen who advocate the connection of wheat 

 mildews with barberries and borages bring forward the 

 following fact, which, it must be acknowledged, has con- 

 siderable weight. On repeating experiments first made on 

 the Continent with Puccinia and Mddium, spores one or two 

 species of fungi have appeared (presumably as the result of 

 the experiments) which had hitherto been unrecorded as 

 British. Undoubtedly, this fact is of importance in the 

 consideration of the subject ; still it must be borne in mind 

 that whilst fungologists are few fungi are almost without 

 number. No season passes but large numbers of species new 

 to Britain are added to our flora. In fact it seems to be 

 true in regard to fungi that one has only to look for certain 

 species in the right places and at the right time, and they 

 are certain to be found. Not only are numerous small 

 leaf fungi annually lighted on, but large species, sometimes 

 a foot high, as Morcliella Smithiana, Cke., by ourselves, and 

 Lactarius controversus, P., by our friend Dr. M'Cullough of 

 Abergavenny. No one supposes these large fungi did not 

 exist here before ; they were not seen and recorded, simply 

 because no one had looked for them. Prof. Elias Fries, 

 the illustrious Swedish botanist, wrote us, a short time 



