CAT-TAIL GRASS FUNGUS. 



423 



Kansas and other parts of the West; but on investigation it was 

 found that the sloughing of the hoofs and other symptoms were 

 the result of ergotism, due to the foul hay on which the cattle 

 had been fed. Similar cases have occurred in other parts of the 

 country, and in Europe the use of flour made from ergotized 

 grain has occasionally given rise to epidemics of a similar nature 

 among men. However it may be as regards abortion, ergot does 

 not usually occur abundantly enough in closely grazed pastures 

 to cause this trouble. It has been suggested that it may be pre- 

 vented from occurring to a dangerous extent in hay by cutting 

 grass as soon as it comes to bloom, and curing it before the ergot 

 has matured. 



Yellowish-white, irregularly rounded bodies, with a checked 



surface, occurring in the flowers of Paspalum laeve, are >Spermoe- 



dia paspali (Fr.), the sclerotium of an entirely different fungus. 



6. Cat-tail grass fungus, {EpichVOe typhina, P.). Forming a 



white or yellow coating around the upper leaf-sheaths of grasses. 



This pretty fungus is found on rather young plants 



through the entire open season. The veivety-ring which 



it forms about the sheath consists at first of a loose 



mycelium, rooted in the tissues of the grass, which 



bears an abundance of conidia, or summer-spores, by 



which other plants are infected. As the season goes 



on this thickens into a yellow or waxy mass, while 



its surface becomes uneven by the elevation of minute 



points, each containing, when ripe, a cluster of asci, 



or spore-sacs, filled with spores. 



In Europe, meadow grasses, and especially Timothy, are some- 



Fio. 167.— £ptc/iU}e on shoath of grass, with enlarged fruits. 



