55 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT' STATION. 



which has to do with the relationship of the organisms and a 

 large amount of data concerning their cultural characters and 

 their ability to attack different host plants, as shown by inocula- 

 tion tests, has been written up and published in Bulletin 219. 

 While some very important immediate practical results have 

 been secured this was primarily a research problem involving 

 several factors of a broad and fundamental nature. The collec- 

 tion of the published data required much painstaking and care- 

 ful labor on the part of Doctor Lewis, the author of the bulle- 

 tin. 



As has been suggested above, this study has been carried on 

 for some years, Dr. Lewis paying especial attention to the 

 pathogenicity of the various species isolated from different 

 hosts. His conclusions regarding relationships were based 

 largely upon the beha->^ior of the different organisms in culture. 

 About 2 years ago a full set of these cultures was turned over 

 to Dr. H. W. Wollenweber of the Bureau of Plant Industry at 

 Washington who was making a special study of the relation- 

 ships of the members of the genus Fusarium. The determi- 

 nations made by the latter, based on the size and shape of the 

 spores, etc., were accepted and the names which he gave to the 

 strains obtained from different hosts were adopted. It mav be 

 said that his conclusions were largely in accord with those 

 obtained by Doctor Lewis working independently and based 

 upon the cultural characters of the organisms. 



In all 46 different strains of Fusarium were studied, all but 

 3 of which were isolated in this laboratory from diseased plants. 

 The following list gives an idea of the wide range of hosts 

 involved ; Apple fruit, china aster, dent corn, flint corn, sweet 

 corn, cucumber, fowl meadow grass, June grass, quack grass, 

 redtop, timothy, pea, potato, summer squash, winter squash, 

 sunflower, tomato and wheat. 



Definite conclusions were reached as to the identity of 32 

 of the 46 strains of organisms under consideration or practi- 

 cally all of those which were carefully studied. In all it was 

 found that only 11 species were represented in the entire col- 

 lection. Ten of these proved to be species already described, 

 although 2 of the 10 were classed as new varieties and one 

 had been previously described as belonging to an entirely differ- 

 ent genus. This last, F. poce, is of particular interest as it ap- 



