252 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I913. 



buds under the name Sporotrichum poae by Stewart. The chief 

 difference is in the larger proportion of septate spores in the 

 apple fungus. Similar strains have been isolated from a num- 

 ber of other hosts. All of these except one strain from sun- 

 flower, F XIII, and one from ears of flint corn, F XL,IX, agree 

 closely with the carnation bud-rot fungus in the proportion of 

 septate and obovate spores. The strain from apple and the one 

 from sunflower cause a rot of carnation buds which is identical 

 with that caused by a strain from June grass which appears to 

 be identical with the fungus described by Stewart. The writer 

 believes that all of the strains which have both obovate and 

 septate spores mentioned in this paper are closely related and 

 that they constitute a group of species, each of which has 

 strains occurring on a number of hosts. These fungi seem to be 

 closely related to Fusarium in cultural characters and in being 

 parasitic on plants. The chief difference between the form 

 from apple and the one from June grass is in the proportion of 

 septate spores. A fungus from summer squash, F XXXI, pro- 

 duces a few obovate spores in culture but the proportion is much 

 less than in the form from apples. Thus there can be built up 

 a series extending from strains in which most of the spores are 

 of the septate Fusarium type with a few obovate spores to those 

 with a small proportion of septate spores. Such a fungus as 

 the one from summer squash would seem to be properly classi- 

 fied in the genus Fusarium but the other forms with the two 

 types of spore are so similar to this one in cultural characters 

 that all seem so closely related as to comprise a group. It may 

 be possible that this group of species should be placed in another 

 genus but after growing certain strains in comparison with 

 species of Fusarium for a long period of time on a number of 

 culture media the writer believes that the fungi with both sep- 

 tate Fusarium spores and obovate spores show closer relation- 

 ship to Fusarium than to any other genus. 



Inoculation experiments proved that strains of the fungi with 

 obovate spores from a number of hosts as well as certain typical 

 species of Fusarium cause a rot of carnation buds which seem 

 identical with the disease described by Stewart and by Heald 

 as due to Sporotrichum. Since the inoculation experiments 

 show that not all the species or strains are confined to a single 

 host plant in their parasitism, a large amount of work in cross 



