1888. | BOTANICAL GAZETTE, 211 
est Oregon collectors. 
Crawfordsville, Ind. 
BRIEFER ARTICLES, 
A date palm fungus (Graphiola Phenicis Poit)—In the early part of 
1887 this fungus was abundant on the fronds of the date palm in one of 
the conservatories of the United States Department of Agriculture, Wash- 
ington, D.C. As it appeared again this spring with greater severity, and 
has been reported from other parts of the United States, it may be of in- 
This fungus appears indifferently on either side of the frond or axis 
in the form of small, roundish, sub-epidermal swellings, scattered or con- 
tiguous, which finally rupture the epidermis and protrude as black spore- 
bodies. These are rarely more than 1 to 1.5 mm. in diameter by 0.5 re age 
high, the base being somewhat broader than the apex. As these bodies 
mature they become crateriform and from their center projects a curious 
bundle of bright yellow filaments, several millimeters in length. Filling 
the bottom of this cavity and suspended between the filaments at this 
stage of growth are innumerable sulphur yellow spores which, when the 
Fonds are shaken, fly off in a manner quite suggestive of ane 
Showers of Pine pollen. Most of these spore-bodies were very pure , 
being confined exclusively to the epidermis, the deeper tissues af : : 
frond being green quite up to the borders of the fungus and beneath it. 
” Some instances, however, the deeper tissues also suffered, and in a bes 
few they had become yellow for a distance of several millimeters, a 
cially in the direction of the longer axis of the pinn, and par meer. 
When the fruit bodies were clustered. On some fronds there ihe fs 
dreds of these bodies, so that they had a fly-specked appearance. = 
fronds upon the same plant appeared to be less affected, and some 
Reent plants were entirely exempt. re 
According to Waclign the black rim of the crater, the pan 
8TOWs out of a hyphs-complex, or pseudo-parenchy: matous ay to tis 
and consists of parallel hyphe arranged nearly at right angles i. 
Plane of the frond. These hyphz are more or less branched, 
