SCLEROTINIA 275 



ergot, being more intense and rapid, more resembling the 

 symptoms produced by intoxication. 



Diseased grains are more or less shrivelled, small, and 

 light, resembling those that have dried up before completing 

 their full development. A section of a diseased grain shows 

 the external portion of the albumen surrounded by a thick 

 layer of mycelium. If diseased grains are placed in a satur- 

 ated atmosphere, at a temperature of about 15 C., in about 

 fifteen days small tufts of a whitish colour tinged with pink 

 develop on the surface of the grain ; these tufts vary from 

 1-1*5 mm - m diameter. A section shows that these tufts 

 originate from the mycelium inside the grain, and consist of 

 branched filaments, the terminal branches bearing conidia 

 at their summit. The conidia are produced in a very 

 unusual manner, somewhat similar to what occurs in one of 

 the conidial forms of Thielavia. The conidia are in reality 

 produced endogenously in the terminal branches of the, 

 hyphae, the contents of which becomes broken up into short 

 pieces which become rounded off, clothed in a proper wall, 

 and escape through an opening at the end of the branch, 

 which becomes dissolved. When one conidium has escaped 

 another takes its place, undergoes the same changes, being 

 pushed out of the sheath formed by the wall of the branch 

 by the growth of other conidia lower down in the branch. 

 The conidia are globose, minute, and colourless. At the 

 time it was considered that this structure represented a dis- 

 tinct fungus not previously observed, hence a new genus, 

 Endoconidium, was established, and the species described as 

 E. temulentum (Prill, and Del.). 



Some of the grains of rye that had produced the Endo- 

 conidium were left under similar conditions for some months, 

 when an ascigerous form of fruit resembling that of Sclerotinia 

 appeared on the grains. The apothecia on a single grain 

 varied in number from two to seven. Colour pale fawn, cup 

 concave at first, then slightly convex or wavy, 5-7 mm. diam., 

 stem almost white, 7-10 mm. long. Asci sucylindrical, 

 8-spored, about 130 ^ long; spores elliptic-fusiform, hyaline, 

 10X4-5^. When the ascigerous form of fruit is produced, 

 the mycelium is found to completely occupy the interior of 

 the" grain, but does not form a compact sclerotium as in 

 Sclerotinia. Upon this discovery a rechristening became 

 imperative, and the generic name of Stromatinia was bestowed, 

 and the fungus became 6*. temulenta (Prill, and Del.), and the 



