302 DISEASES OF FIELD & GARDEN CROPS. [CH. 



from nature as British in the Gardeners' Chronicle for 20th 

 May 1876. It is extremely common in this country. Dr. 

 Sadebeck found his second fungus in the possession of the 

 living potato plant, for he wrote (Untersucliungen iiber 

 Pythium Equiseti. Beitrdge zur Biologie der Pflanzen. 

 Breslau, 1875): "In the first days of July 1875 I saw 

 at Metternich, not far from Coblenz, a potato field which 

 to all appearance was affected with the murrain ; a closer 

 examination, however, showed that the signs of the disease 

 were traceable almost entirely to Pythium Equiseti. The 

 anticipated Peronospora was not found on any of the 

 plants examined ; on the contrary, the Pythium was dis- 

 covered in a great number of plants and in all parts of 

 the plants." In a criticism published in the Journal of 

 Botany for March 1876, it was stated, in reference to this 

 part of the subject, that it had " lately been attempted to 

 connect this fungus (Pythium Equiseti, Sdbk.) with the 

 oospores of Peronospora infestans." 



In the same year Mr. James Renny, a member of the 

 Scientific Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 was also studying a Pythium which he believed to be new, 

 and which was provisionally named by him P. incerlum. 

 This was exhibited at the Royal Horticultural Society 

 and Linnean Society, and according to the Journal of 

 Botany, 1876, p. 156, Mr. Renny considered his P. 

 incertum to be the same with the oospores found by us. 

 P. incertum was engraved by us in the Gardeners' Chronicle 

 for 1st July 1876, and we need hardly say is totally 

 different from Artotrogus. 



Dr. Max Cornu, who at this time had our preparations 

 before him, said they reminded him of P. proliferum, De 

 Bary, another different fungus ; for an illustration of this 

 see Gardener's Chronicle, 1st July 1876. He also thought 

 they looked like the Myzocytium of Schenk. 



At the time when these investigations were going on, 

 Professor de Bary himself was, by a commission received 

 from the Royal Agricultural Society of England, making 



