Note on the Chestnut Fungus 1 



By William T. Davis 



On the twentieth of last June I found growing in the woods in 

 Buck's Hollow a young chestnut, less than two inches in diameter, 

 which was dying of the chestnut fungus. This little tree showed 

 not only the usual pustules common to chestnuts suffering from 

 attacks of Diaporthe parasitica Murrill, but near the ground there 

 were many slender thread-like gelatinous masses, often one 

 fourth of an inch in length, hanging from the bark. These 

 jelly streamers dry, and the spores thus liberated are blown about 

 by the wind or otherwise transported and find lodgement on 

 other chestnut trees. The jelly streamers are mentioned because 

 their presence and use in distributing the spores is not so com- 

 monly noticed as the simple pustules on the bark of the affected 

 trees. In the present instance the unfortunate little tree had not 

 only been attacked by the fungus, but as a result of its dying 

 condition, had attracted the wood-boring beetle Neoclytus cry- 

 [hrocephalus Fab., and I found many of the insects running rap- 

 idly over its trunk and branches. 



The chestnut is mentioned in the history of our island in con- 

 nection with boundary lines, and for the use of its bark in tan- 

 ning, by the early settlers. The value of its wood is of course 

 well known. It is still very plentiful, but the rapid spread of the 

 chestnut fungus to all parts of the island is fast killing what was 

 probably at one time our most common forest tree. In no locality 

 that I visited during the summer of 1908, with the exception of 

 northern Manhattan Island, were there so many dead and dying 

 chestnuts to be seen, as on Staten Island. In northern New 

 Jersey no affected trees were observed at Lake Hopatcong, where 

 the chestnut is plentiful, but at Ramsey several were found that 



1 Presented October 17, 1908. 



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