fungus remains to serve to reinfect the trees when the rains become 

 frequent. Apparently it is favored by high temperatures, as it is 

 less common in the cooler higher elevations where more favorable 

 conditions prevail as to moisture than in the warmer though some- 

 what drier low lands. It spreads from one part of the tree to another 

 by growth, and in the same way to other plants and coffee trees in 

 contact with the diseased coffee trees. To other trees, however, some 

 distance away it is usually communicated by the fungus-infested 

 leaves dropping or being carried by the wind and adhering to any 

 moist leaf or stem on which they happen to fall, the fungus then 

 sending out threads which securely glue the leaves to their new host. 

 Each such leaf serves as a center of infection. That the diseased 

 leaA'^es can not adhere so well to dried surfaces is one reason for the 

 disease not spreading in dry weather. There is apparently no other 

 way in which this fungus is distributed, and for this reason it would 

 seem to be greatly handicapped in comparison with some spore-bear- 

 ing fungi. It is, however, so widely distributed and has such a way 

 of appearing suddenly in unexpected places that it would seem as 

 though it possessed some other more effective though unapparent 

 means of distribution. 



Besides coffee, the author has found this fungus on sour orange, 

 the wild vines Luff a cegyptica and Cucumis anguria, and the culti- 

 vated ornamentals Hibiscus and Croton. It is probably able to at- 

 tack these plants only under very favorable conditions, as they usu- 

 ally remain free from the disease even when surrounded by infested 

 coffee trees. The fungus also attacks the coffee berries, about one- 

 third of which are found to haA^e blackened grains, the large propor- 

 tion of such grains indicating that some of the injury is due to 

 Pellicularia. In any event the number of berries attacked is so small 

 that as a berry disease it is of little importance. The loss occasioned 

 by this disease is that which results from the destruction of green 

 leaf tissue, and through this the lessened yield of berries. It is prin- 

 cipally a leaf parasite, but also causes the death of young branches, 

 which often die after defoliation. When the branch is not killed it 

 can not again bear leaves until new growth has been made. The 

 tree must be weakened and the yield correspondingly reduced by 

 the loss of foliage. What the loss from this source may be it is im- 

 possible to know, but if proportionate to the percentage of leaves 

 killed it would equal more than one-fourth in some trees noticed. 

 The loss of leaves is ordinarily much less and frequently many trees 

 escape infection. The loss in yield of berries from this source in most 

 plantations is not large. It has never been observed to kill the trees. 

 Like the " mancha de hierro," it is rarely found on poor, half -starved 

 trees for the reason, no doubt, that such trees usually are in rather 

 dry situations and have less foliage. 

 71478°— 15 2 



