76 EXPERIMENTS. 



spores of bunt, uredo foetiday as wen as those 

 of smut, or uredo segetunif enter by the roots 

 and circulate in the plant, has already been 

 glanced at. This has been the surmise of 

 most observers, but no one has yet seen them 

 grow ; nor would this, as is stated in the first 

 chapter, be the normal mode of growth. The 

 spores themselves are undoubtedly too large to 

 enter either by the stomata of the leaves, or the 

 spongioles of the roots. Some ingenious ex- 

 periments have been recently made by Mr. 

 Berkeley, which he most kindly communicated 

 to the author, that appear to estabhsh the 

 theory that these contents of the spores do en- 

 ter the plant in the way suspected, and grow 

 The mode of proceeding was to immerse some 

 seeds of wheat in water containing bunt. One 

 of the first appearances was a curious mould 

 with peculiar spores that sprung up on the 

 spores of bunt. The plants which came up 

 from these seeds were evidently aifected ; but 

 no communication whatever could be traced 

 between the cells of these plants and the shoots 

 thrown out by the spores. No intrusion what- 

 ever of the mycelium developed by the bunt 

 spores into the wheat could be discovered. 

 This looks, therefore, as if the fine contents of 



