THE UREDINEA.* 
18t5 daly JBM Ie 
ull, 
THE study of this branch of the Fungi is still in a stage of 
development, and a few words of introduction may not be out 
of place as tending to awaken a special interest and induce 
those of our members who have time and opportunity to do 
some work towards clearing up the puzzles that present them- 
selves. 
When the earliest observations were made, it was not un- 
naturally supposed that each leaf fungus had its own special 
host plant, to which it was confined, and trom which it would 
therefore take its name, hence arose such names as Uredo rose, 
Puccinia primule, andso on. Then it was found that certain 
leaf fungi were not confined to a single species or genus, but 
spread more or less through the same order, hence dicidium 
compositarum for those occurring on the members of the order 
Composite, thus lumping what had at first been considered 
separate species. Next, it was observed that the same host 
plant in many cases had a second parasite which was supposed 
to be a distinct species ; thus the yellow dusty spots, composed 
of masses of globular single-celled spores, on the leaf of the 
bramble, known as Uvedo rubi, were found to be succeeded 
later by clusters of brown many-celled spores, to which the 
names Avregma or Phragmidium were given. In other cases 
there appeared to be three distinct parasites, of which those on 
mint are a type—Acidiospores=Acidium menthe ; Uredo, or 
single-celled brown spores= Urvedo menthe ; Teleuto, or double- 
celled dark brown spores on the top of a pedicel= Puccima 
menthe. Careful investigation eventually proved all three, 
apparently distinct species, to be produced from the same 
mycelium, and were but three stages in the life history of one 
and the same fungus. These, and similar stages of other species 
had been going under the names Uvedo, Trichobasis, Lecythea, 
etc., all of which had to be wiped out despite the demurs of a 
few able mycologists. To hark back many decades; the 
Uredines had in store a greater surprise for mycological students. 
For some considerable time it had been a belief among farmers 
that the presence of a Barberry bush on the margin of a wheat 
field had the power to induce an attack of mildew on the wheat, 
although there was no cause known for such an influence, in 
fact, the fungoid character of the mildew was then unknown. 
A writer of an agricultural work in 1733, ascribed the blight 
to the attack of small insects brought by the east wind, which 
fed upon the wheat leaving their excreta as black spots upon 
the straw. 
* Read at the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union Fungus Foray at Sandsend. 
Naturalist, 
