May 10, 1912] 
experiments Pantanelli inoculated sixteen 
plants. Of these seven dried up, whether 
from the action of the fungus or from some 
other cause is not quite clear. From the 
other cases Pantanelli concludes that the 
American fungus may cause serious dam- 
age to Italian as well as American chest- 
nuts. No control plants appear to have 
been used. To obtain a clear idea of the 
action of the fungus a more detailed ac- 
count is to be desired. 
Pantanelli compares the American Dia- 
porthe parasitica with the five other species 
of Diaporthe which have been recorded on 
chestnuts and he considers it different from 
any of them, in which opinion he is correct. 
The important point, however, is not to dis- 
tinguish between Diaporthe parasitica and 
the other five species of that genus, but 
between Diaporthe parasitica of America 
and Endothia radicales of northern Italy, 
to which it is evidently more closely related 
than to any of the other Diaporthe species. 
It is also to be desired that series of experi- 
ments with the inoculation of the spores 
of the Italian Hndothia on Italian and 
American species of chestnut be made. 
Before proceeding farther let me recapit- 
ulate what has already been said. First, 
our chestnut-blight fungus, if an imported 
species, is not likely to have come from 
Japan. Secondly, a fungus noticed on 
chestnuts in Italy as long ago as 1862 in 
external appearance and the microscopic 
characters of the perithecia, asci and spores 
so closely resembles the American chestnut 
fungus that they have been considered 
identical by some well-known Huropean 
botanists. Thirdly, the American fungus 
is believed to be the cause of a very serious 
disease of American chestnuts and also to 
attack Italian chestnuts grown in America, 
while, on the other hand, the Italian fungus 
does not produce any clearly recognized 
disease. 
SCIENCE 
719 
If we now turn to the question whether 
the fungus of the present chestnut blight 
can be considered identical with any spe- 
cles previously known in America, we find 
ourselves involved in a maze of conflicting 
descriptive and bibliographical details 
which must utterly confuse those who are 
not expert mycological systematists, and 
even experts may be pardoned if they hesi- 
tate to express a very decided opinion on 
the subject. Although it can not be ex- 
pected that any but specialists would be 
interested in the study of the very scattered 
literature relating to the subject, it may be 
of interest to others to have a general state- 
ment as to why it is so confusing even to 
experts. 
As has been said, the name on the label 
of the specimen in the Erbario Crittogamico 
Italiano is Endothia radicalis, which to 
mycologists signifies that the Italian botan- 
ists, Cesati and De Notaris, to whom the 
naming of the specimen is to be attributed, 
were of the opinion that the Italian fungus 
was not a new species, but was identical 
with Spheria radicalis of Schweinitz de- 
seribed in his ‘‘North American Fungi’’ 
in 1832, which they erroneously quote as 
the species on which Fries founded the 
genus Hndothia in 1849. The genus was 
really founded on Spheria gyrosa of 
Schweinitz from North Carolina, described 
still earlier, in 1822. Subsequent writers, 
however, considered S. gyrosa and S. radi- 
calis as the same species to which the earlier 
specific name gyrosa should be given. Be- 
sides the specimen issued in the Erbario 
Crittogamico other Italian specimens were 
distributed in Rabenhorst’s ‘‘Herbarium 
Mycologicum,’’ Thuemen’s ‘‘Mycotheca 
Universalis’? and Saceardo’s ‘‘Mycotheca 
Veneta,’’ and as early as 1829, only seven 
years after Schweinitz’s original descrip- 
tion, Spheria gyrosa was reported in Italy 
by Rudolphi in Linnea. 
