THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 19S 



especially because I have found abundance of uredospores, which 

 were absent from the specimens sent from South Australia, I 

 thought it might be desirable to bring these facts under the 

 notice of the Club, and describe the uredospores, such descrip- 

 tion being necessary for a complete definition of the species. 

 And this absence of uredospores in Dr. Ludwig's specimens is 

 all the more surprising since, as for instance in rust of wheat — 

 Puccinia graminis — the uredospores or summer spores appear 

 first to serve as a rapid means of multiplication, while the teleuto- 

 spores or winter spores appear towards the autumn to tide over 

 the winter and serve for reproduction in the spring. 



The Latin description of the fungus given by Professor Ludwig,, 

 translated into English, is as follows : — "Sori amphigenous, 

 numerous, small or large, erumpent, surrounded at base by dry 

 cuticle of epidermis, but not covered by cuticle nor possessing 

 paraphyses, circular or elliptical, black. Teleutospores clavate, 

 constricted in the middle, thickened at apex, rounded and 

 pointed in an unusual manner, lower cell tapering into pedicel, 

 yellowish-brown, upper cell elliptical or rarely spherical, chestnut- 

 brown, apex thickened, epispore even, 64-40 (60-50) x 23-14 

 mm. Pedicel hyaline 60-30 x 6-5 mm." 



The habitat is given as on the leaves, but you can see from 

 these specimens that the fungus also attacks the stem, at least in 

 Victoria. 



The uredospores were found by me, along with the teleuto- 

 spores, both on the stem and leaves, sometimes ascending near 

 to the umbellate inflorescence. At this stage the sori containing 

 both kinds of spores were comparatively few in number, and the 

 teleutospores far exceeded the uredospores in numbers. The 

 uredospores are globose or oval, brownish-yellow in colour, 

 echinulate, with four germ pores, xoVo-'sio" i^^- ^ TTVo~9i^o" i"- 



There are still a large number of undiscovered rusts in Vic- 

 toria, and they afford a promising field to the investigator in this 

 department. The following works may be recommended for 

 this study : — Plowright's " British Uredinese and Ustilaginese," 

 Saccardo's " Sylloge Fungorum," Massee's " British Fungus- 

 Flora," and, as a matter of course, Cooke's " Handbook of 

 Australian Fungi." 



The Inaugural Address of the President (Prof. Ralph Tate) of 

 the Adelaide (1893) meeting of the Australasian Association for the 

 Advancement of Science has been issued as a pamphlet, and 

 forms an excellent record of the progress of Australian Geology 

 to date, first of all enumerating the writers and afterwards show- 

 ing what has been written respecting the principal formations. 



