124 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



VEGETABLE PATHOLOGY. 



By Miss F. M. Campbell. 



(Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, loth October, 



iSS-j.J 



After quoting Berkeley and Balfour on the importance of 

 the subject, the author proceeded to give, as more recent views, 

 those of Mr. Worthington Smith, and alluded to the havoc 

 wrought by fungi on starch-producing plants such as cereals 

 and the potato. She suggested that, as bacteria, e.g., typhoid 

 germs, can be cultivated on potato slices, people cannot be too 

 careful in their selection of vegetables, for plants gathered in a 

 ■sickly state may be productive of very serious ailments if eaten. 

 Instances were given of fatalities resulting from eating diseased 

 vegetables. Some cattle diseases, such as stringhalt, are perhaps 

 due to this cause. 



The author stated that this damp season has been very 

 favourable for these fungus growths. They can be seen in 

 shop windows — in fact, everywhere. Someespeciallyfine-looking 

 ■seed potatoes seem well supplied with germs for next year, and 

 our onion crops in some districts have suffered severely. 



The author referred to the very rapid multiplication of these 

 pests, much more rapid even than that of insects. Much 

 mischief really due to attacks of fungi had been saddled upon 

 insects or other agents. The insects, however, often puncture 

 leaves, etc., and the entophytes make use of these apertures in 

 order to obtain easy ingress to the inner tissues of the plant. 



Forest trees suffer greatly through the growth of fungi. 

 Everyone who has travelled through our forests by coach must 

 have noticed how a skilful coach driver, on calm days, watched 

 and listened for falling branches of trees. This is caused princi- 

 pally by a number of species of fungi lumped together as dry 

 rot. In America an experienced woodman avoids felling a tree 

 with what he calls spunk upon it ( Poly poms spuviosus). This is 

 also found in Victoria. Since the economic value of the timber 

 is lessened by it, sawmill proprietors inquire constantly of those 

 who ought to know how to avoid the great expense of felling 

 and dragging to the sawmill large trees which, when cut up, 

 yield a quantity of perfectly useless timber. The oak tree alone 

 is infested with some 200 species of fungi. The dry rot causes 

 the timber, if used, to very speedily decay, and life and property 

 have repeatedly been sacrificed to this fungus, owing to the 

 unsoundness it produces, especially in the timbers of sailing 

 ships and in the supporting posts of mines. 



As a set-off to their pernicious influences, the author adduced 



