»May 10, 1912] 
Cesati and De Notaris, who in their ‘‘Sferi- 
_acei Italici,’’ 1863, gave a sufficiently de- 
tailed and accurate description of Hn- 
dothia radicalis with a recognizable figure, 
so that, taken in connection with the speci- 
men in the Erbario Crittogamico, there can 
be no doubt as to what they understood by 
the species. This may or may not be the 
same as the Spheria radicalis of Schwein- 
itz, but certainly no genuine Schweinitzian 
specimens which I have ever seen would 
warrant any one in expressing a definite 
opinion. As far as one can distinguish 
species by their morphological, apart from 
their pathogenic, characters, Diaporthe 
parasitica seems to me to resemble the 
Italian Endothia radicalis so closely that 
they can not be separated specifically unless 
it be by some peculiarity not hitherto 
recorded. 
There is still another point which should 
be considered. Is the fungus of our chest- 
nut blight ever found on other trees? I 
have received a series of interesting speci- 
mens collected by Professor G. P. Clinton, 
which will illustrate this point. In some 
the bark of chestnuts and in others the 
bark of oaks is infested with an Hndothia 
which in general appearance and in micro- 
scopic structure seem to me to be the same 
species. It is not, however, true that all 
the Endothie which occur on oaks belong 
to this species. There is an Hndothia 
which appears to be common on oaks in 
the south, especially Florida and Louisiana, 
of which I collected material myself in New 
Orleans, which is clearly distinct from the 
Endothia of chestnuts, having ascospores 
much narrower and of a shape more nearly 
linear or bacilloid. Schweinitz gave as hosts 
of his Spheria gyrosa Fagus and Juglans, 
and of Spheria radicalis the exposed roots 
of Fagus. Too much weight, however, 
should not be placed on the hosts given by 
Schweinitz, for an examination of fungi of 
SCIENCE 
‘belongs to the Spheriales. 
_cologists. 
‘sibilities of checking 
721 
different kinds collected by him shows that 
in his statements as to the hosts he was not 
always to be trusted. 
The generic position of the chestnut fun- 
gus is of interest only to mycologists. It 
has been placed by Rehm in the genus Val- 
sonectria and by Von Hoehnel in Endothia. 
If we accept the distinction between the 
Hypoecreales and the Spheriales as gen- 
erally understood, then Diaporthe para- 
sitica should be placed in the former and 
removed from Diaporthe proper, which 
The distine- 
tions between the two groups, it must be 
confessed, are rather arbitrary in a more 
natural-system, and the valsoid genera of 
both groups might be put together. But 
the present condition of mycology does not 
admit the formulation of a truly natural 
erouping of genera. If, as I think, Hn- 
dothia should be kept as a genus, then 
Diaporthe should be placed in that genus 
-rather than in Valsonectria, which was not 
created until years later. Furthermore, 
even if Diaporthe parasitica be considered 
a true Diaporthe, the name Hndothia, it 
should be remembered, antedates Diaporthe 
‘of Nitzschke. 
In conclusion it may be said that the 
chestnut-blight fungus suggests a number 
of important and difficult questions to my- 
A definite answer to some of 
them might throw some light on the pos- 
the disease, but 
wherever it may have come from, whether 
native or exotic, what we now know of its 
life history unfortunately gives us no rea- 
son to suppose that it could be seriously 
checked, much less extirpated, by any 
means which could be generally adopted, 
although something might be attempted 
where it is desired to protect special lim- 
ited areas. At present it is the mycologist 
rather than the forester who is called on to 
investigate. From what has been said the 
