172 SPICES 



CHAP. 



The worst attacked trees are those on bad, stiff, 

 yellow clay soil, exposed to full sun. A tree grow- 

 ing beneath a large Para rubber tree was but little 

 damaged, though the parasite was present. This tree, 

 however, appears to be over-shaded, as, though quite an 

 old tree, it has, as far as I know, never flowered. The 

 soil it grows in is, however, better and richer than that 

 in which another tree about 50 yards away is growing, 

 and which is in a bad state from the attacks of this 

 alga. At the same time it must be mentioned that 

 trees exposed to full sunlight, though growing in 

 fairly good damp soil, are badly affected, and that 

 manuring with cow -dung, though producing a good 

 renewed growth of leaves and buds, does not seem to 

 have any permanent effect in restraining the growth 

 of the pest. 



I am inclined to think that the actual shading of the 

 tree has more to do with the check of the pest, as 

 young seedlings planted under shade in lines in a wood 

 partly cleared for the clove plant seem quite free from 

 the disease. 



The fungus is very destructive to seedlings, and I 

 have lost a great many at times, though care was taken 

 to disinfect them from time to time with copper sulphate. 

 These seedlings were not only grown in beds or nurseries, 

 but also in flower-pots, but when put out in exposed 

 hot positions the buds were soon infected with the 

 disease, and very soon the little plant died. 



Badly infested trees do not flower, and are therefore 

 from a planter's point of view valueless. I noted at one 

 time that in the case of a tree badly infested with this 

 pest, no flowers were produced on any part of the tree 

 except on a branch that happened to have grown into 

 the branches of a shade tree (Sterculia elata), whose 

 large leaves protected the clove branch from the full 

 heat and light of the sun. This branch for some years 

 produced flowers regularly in February and March, but 

 by some chance the protecting bough of the Sterculia 

 was cut away, and since then no flowers have appeared. 



