124 Notes and Gleanings. 



Wheat and Barberry Rust. — The theory has long been prevalent among 

 practical agriculturists, that the proximity of barberry trees produces rust in 

 wheat Men of science, unable to trace herein the sequence of cause and effect, 

 long derided the idea, and placed it among the prejudices of the agricultural 

 mind. The facts of the farmer have, however, been too strong for the science 

 of the botanist, and experience has won the day over theory. Sir Joseph 

 Banks, in 1806, suggested that the parasitic fungus of the barberry' and that of the 

 wheat were of the same species, and that the seed is transferred from the bar- 

 berr}- to the com. It was reser\-ed for the German fungologist, De Barj-, within 

 the last few years, to establish the truth of this theory, and to prove the ex- 

 istence of the phenomenon of Alternation of Generation among fungi. The 

 researches of Steenstrup, and others, have made us familiar with this remarkable 

 phenomenon among the lower forms of animal life, but had hardly prepared us to 

 meet with it in the vegetable kingdom. It appears probable, however, that the 

 phenomenon is by no means uncommon here also — affording another instance 

 of the law that it is in their lowest forms that the animal and vegetable kingdoms 

 approach one another most nearly ; and that whole tribes of fungi, hitherto 

 considered distinct, are but different phases of one another. These known 

 orange-red spots, so common on the leaves of the barberry, are produced by the 

 ^■Ecidiuffi berberidis, while the rust of wheat and other cereal crops, but found 

 equally on some other species of grass, as the common couch-grass, or Triticum 

 repens, is the Puccinia graminis. In the volume for 1865, of the Monats- 

 berichte der kon. preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaftea zu Berlin, is a paper 

 by Dr. De Bary, giving an elaborate account of his experiments on the propaga- 

 tion of these two fungi, in which, if his experiments are reliable, he clearly proves 

 the correctness of Sir Joseph Banks's suggestion, that they are one and the same 

 species. The experiment was tried, VNath due precautions, of inoculating the 

 leaves of the barberrj- with the spores of the Puccinia. the result being the produc- 

 tion, not of the same fungus, but of the yEcidium, while the sowing of the spores 

 of this latter fungus on the leaves of couch or wheat, produced conversely the 

 Puccinia. By sowing the spores of either fungus on the plant on which it was 

 itself parasitic, he failed altogether to reproduce the same plant ; and this alter- 

 nation of generation may serve to account for the fact, which has often been 

 noticed, that rust is apt to appear, not in successive, but in alternate years, on the 

 same crop. A'ature. 



Sub-tropical Gardekixg. — Here is a hint for those who follow out sub- 

 tropical gardening. How truly noble would be the effect of fine well-flowered 

 specimen plants of Datura {Brugmafisid) arborea and sanguttiea, and their allies, 

 as centres for beds of low-growing foliage plants ! The larger and more tree- 

 like the individual plants thus employed the better. Their tropical forms of 

 leaf and flower would be strictly in character in such an association. 



Gardener s Chronicle. 



