Mr. Bauer ou the Ergot of Rye. 477 



internally, and siu'roiinded with a light siiaded pui-ple ring, but is witliout 

 any external membrane or integument, or internal fibres or vessels, whieh is 

 also the case with the scuteilum of the embryo of the sound grain. 



In fig. 9 is a longitudinal section of an infected grain, more advanced, being 

 about eight or ten days after fecundation ; at that period the ergot is consi- 

 derably enlarged, and has already torn and detached from its base the integu- 

 ments and cellular substance of the original germen. 



After the ergot emerges from its husk, it enlarges very rapidly, and when the 

 rye is ripe, the ergot is often five or six times the bulk of the sound grain (see 

 Tab. XXXII. fig. 11); and considering that the ergot is only the enlarged 

 scuteilum, the natural size of which is not quite a tenth part of an incii, it 

 must be confessed that the enlargement is prodigious ; but not all the ergots 

 even in the same ear attain the same size (see Tab. XXXII. fig. 10). The 

 general number of ergots in an ear is from six to eight, but sometimes there 

 are even more, and very often there is only one single ergot in an ear, the 

 rest of its contents being fine sound grains ; but in ears which contain 

 many ergots the sound grains are generally small and stunted. As the sub- 

 stance of the ergot is very soft at its formation within the young germen, it 

 generally retains some shape of the original grain, particularly the groove at 

 the back. 



After the ergot has emerged from the husk, its substance soon indurates, 

 and assumes a dark brownish-purple colour, and gradually becomes very hard, 

 and after having been in contact with the air and exposed to the sun for some 

 time, the ergot, having no integument, cracks in many places ; and I think 

 it is such fissures which some authors consider to be perforations made by 

 insects, — an opinion, however, which is totally unfounded, for there exist 

 no perforations in the ergot at any period of its formation or vegetation. If 

 cut through while yet in a green or fresh state, the internal substance of the 

 ergot appears of the firnmess of an almond or nut. If the ergot is soaked in 

 water a month or longer, it gets soft, but never dissolves, and if bruised, the 

 substance is found to consist of smaller particles than the albumen of the 

 sound grain, and if examined through a microscope under water many large 

 blotches of oil appear to be mixed with it, and when an ergot is lighted at one 

 end, it burns with a brijiht flame like a wax candle ; this is also the case with 



