124 



DISEASES OF TREES 



brown secretion which pours over the surface as a slimy glutinous 

 substance, swarming with bacteria. The bacteria also find their 

 way between the paraphyses, so that it is scarcely possible to 

 get a culture of spores that is free from them. It is these, too, 

 which induce the rapid decay and solution of the entire ascophore. 

 The spores (Fig. 64, a) are spindle-shaped and pointed at both 

 ends, and the wall of the spore is thickened at both of the ex- 

 tremities. Before germinating, each 

 spore generally contains two large 

 drops of oil. 



Ascophores of Rhisina were 

 sent to me ten years ago from 

 Silesia, with the remark that in a 

 young pine wood where many of 

 the plants had died the fructifica- 

 tions of this fungus appeared on 

 the surface of the ground in the 

 neighbourhood of the dead trees. 



FIG. 6 1. a, the upper side, and, l>, 

 the under side of a sporophore 

 of A', undulata; c is a small fun- 

 gus-body. 



FIG. 62. Section of a sporophore. 



My request that a few dead trees should be forwarded for in- 

 vestigation was not complied with, so that it was only two years 

 ago, on receipt of material from Herr von Blucher, forester in 

 Schwerin, that I found myself in a position to make a more 

 intimate acquaintance with the parasite and its life-history. 



In the beginning of August 1890, Herr von Blucher and Herr 

 von der Liihe sent me numerous ascophores of the parasite, as 

 well as diseased and dead conifers, along with information re- 

 garding the occurrence of the disease at Schildfeld, near Bennin, 

 in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The diseased and dead plants were 



