Mr. Bauer on the Ergot of Rye. 4Sl 



though since that time some ergotized plants came occasionally into my hands, 

 I never examined them with an intention to discover anything new in them, 

 till in October 1838, when Mr. John Smith, the chief assistant in the Royal 

 Botanic Garden at Kew, brought to me some specimens of ergotized plants of 

 a species of Elymus, which were not only infected with ergot, but of which 

 every external part was infected with a minute filamentous fungus, bearing an 

 infinite number oif sporidia, which I never before had observed. 



Mr. Smith has given a very detailed and correct account of this fungus, in 

 a paper which was read before the Linnean Society on the 6th of November, 

 1838. He also communicated his discovery soon after he showed it to me to 

 his friend Mr. Quekett, who read on the 4th of December before the Linnean 

 Society a long and very elaborate paper on the same subject, and in which he 

 quotes some very interesting works by M. Leveill^, Dr. Phcebus, and Philippar, 

 which, to judge from Mr. Quekett's quotations and copies of figures, seem to 

 be very correct observations and illustrations of that subject ; but these ori- 

 ginal works I have not yet seen, and from all these observations and illustra- 

 tions I am not yet convinced that these filamentous fungi with numerous spo- 

 ridia are the cause or the consequence of the ergot, because, 



1st, Every gramineous plant is equally infected with that minute filamentous 

 fungus, yet very few of these plants produce ergots ; and amongst agricultural 

 grains, the rye is the only one that is subject to that disease ; among the many 

 hundred ears of wheat that I examined in every stage of its growth, I found 

 only one spikelet that produced three ergots, and one spikelet with only one 

 ergot. 



Because, 2nd, in autumn all decaying plants are infected with such filamen- 

 tous fungi and minute sporidia ; and Mr. Smith, when he brought to me the first 

 specimen of his ergot, brought me also a specimen of a flower of Carina indica, 

 in which not only the inside of the anther was infected with this filamentous 

 fungus, but also the individual pollen grains were strongly infected with it. 



For these reasons, I cannot yet consider the question, of the cause of the 

 Ergot, as finally and satisfactorily settled ; but I hope those naturalists who 

 have already done so much on that subject will persevere in their researches 

 and experiments till they finally succeed. 



