368 Notes and Gleanings. 



The minuter Fungi on ripening Foliage. — At this season of the year, 

 when the fall of the leaf is preceded by its rich and splendid tints, the curious 

 eye can readily detect a number of minute specks, spots, and discolorations, 

 which are due to the presence of fungi. The oak, tlie elm, the maple, are par- 

 ticularly liable to these ; and almost, if not quite, all the leaves of deciduous 

 plants are subject to the same conditions. 



To attempt an explanation of their presence would be as futile as to attempt 

 perpetual motion, especially under the present state of our knowledge of the 

 occult operations in Nature. To find a remedy for the mildews on the grape 

 and the gooseberry, for the spots of incipient decay on the apple and pear, or 

 the bitter rot on some particular sorts of apple, might be desirable, but hardly 

 possible. That they yield to sulphur, seems to merely indicate an affinity to 

 certain skin-diseases in the human frame ; and even this the more effectually 

 when immediately and externally applied. By what possible way, soil, sulphu- 

 rously prepared, can ward off the yellows in the peach or the "curl in the leaf," 

 as has been averred, is not so evident. Yet some facts well authenticated of the 

 success of such treatment is worth a great deal of theory. Whatever causes injury 

 or ill health to a living plant seems to induce the presence of these minute forms ; 

 but from whence they immediately proceeded, or how they came, we have as 

 yet no means of knowing. Their complicated and varied internal structure, 

 vying with that of the highest organizations, indicate to the reflecting mind 

 some design in the presence, and some use in their action. It belongs more 

 particularly to the operative horticulturist to ward off their presence if possible. 

 Under what conditions they appear, how t'ney affect the plant they infest, and 

 on what species each kind delights itself; how poiymorphal their different 

 aspects ; how to classify and arrange them so as to be readily recognized, — 

 these and kindred subjects, in which minute observation and common sense 

 combined will be called into play, it is the province as well as the privilege of 

 the naturalist to enjoy. Meanwhile, no one can be insensible to their economy 

 in Nature ; and the most pleasure, instruction, and profit we can get from them, 

 it seems to me, decidedly all the better. To such a class of readers and think- 

 ers, observers and lookers-about ; to those more or less given to study into the 

 wonders which lie around them, finding "sermons in stones, and books in the 

 running brooks," — no fact connected with these lowest forms of vegetable 

 existence will be trivial or nonsensical. 



The relations in general aspect which one kind of life bears to some other 

 are at once obvious. Circles of black dots on a grayish-white, scaly ground, 

 and seen on our hardest granite rocks, indicate a lichen with its black fruit- 

 specks. Similar concentric circles, with little papillae of black specks, show 

 upon the apple-skin the presence of a fungus known as Dothidea or Asteroma 

 pomigena. Another but similar species checkers the crimsoning leaf of the 

 herb Robert Geranium, and adds much to its charms. 



The yellow foliage of the dying clover will become flecked with irregular 

 specks of vegetation due to some such cause ; and every other leaf, perhaps, 

 of many species of grasses, is adorned with longitudinal lines or chinks of the 

 Puccinia graminis. 



