FUNGUS DISEASES 85 



a very offensive smell. At all stages of growth, if the 

 bulb of an infected sucker be split open, the heart will be 

 found rotten and composed of a putrid yellow mass ; further 

 out the fibres will be found to be firmer, but still in a 

 decomposing state and having a yellowish tinge, until the 

 outer part is reached, and here will be found, say about 

 one inch from the surface, a bright red streak flanked to 

 the outside and inside by a brighter yellow than occurs on 

 the other part of the cut surface ; the red streak follows 

 all the passages to the roots and continues all along these 

 to their extremities. All the roots will present a sickly 

 appearance, some quite dead, others partly so, but none 

 quite healthy. The smell given off by a diseased banana 

 sucker is offensive and peculiar, and if once experienced 

 cannot be mistaken." 



Cuba. Erwin Smith* reported that he had investigated 

 a disease of bananas which occurs in Cuba, and from his 

 material had isolated a species of Fusarium (F. cubense) 

 which, when inoculated into the midrib, leaf-stalk, and 

 trunk, gave a typical discoloration of the vascular bundles, 

 and from these the fungus was again isolated. The experi- 

 ments had to be discontinued before the bulb could be 

 infected. 



Trinidad. The " Moko " is a variety of plantain which 

 was at one time commonly grow r n in Trinidad as a shade 

 plant for young cacao. About twenty years ago, this 

 variety was almost extirpated by a disease which was not 

 investigated until 1910, when J. B. Rorer, the Mycologist 

 of the Department of Agriculture of Trinidad, commenced 

 a careful study of it. At first he supposed it was the 

 Panama disease, many of the symptoms being similar, but 

 the longitudinal splitting of the leaf-sheaths forming the 

 trunk, which is so characteristic of the Panama disease, 

 does not occur, and the common banana or Gros Michel, 

 which is so susceptible to the Panama disease, appears to 

 be practically immune from the " Moko " disease. The 

 results of Rorer's exhaustive study of this disease were 

 * Science, xxxi. 750. 



