﻿REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I9IO 33 



related species are found, makes a revision and collation of the 

 New York species of the genus especially desirable. 



Having been informed that the raspberry patches of the fruit 

 growers in the vicinity of Marlboro, Ulster county, were suffering 

 from a disease, a visit was made to that place in July and some 

 of the diseased plants examined. They were found to be principally 

 affected by a parasitic fungus, Sphaerella rubina Pk. The 

 fruiting canes put forth their leaves and blossoms as usual and com- 

 mence to develop their fruit, but before it ripens it withers and dries 

 on the branches. The dryness of the season doubtless aided the 

 destructive tendencies of the fungus and the loss was severe. The 

 diseased canes bore patches of the fungus but it had already dis- 

 tributed its spores, which, according to previous observations made 

 on the type specimens, mature early in the season, even in April 

 and May. In consequence, the young canes showed brown or black- 

 ish patches on the lower part, in some cases near the ground, thereby 

 showing that they had already been infected and in their turn 

 would probably bear a crop of spores next spring. It would seem 

 to be possible to check this disease by spraying the young shoots with 

 fungicides, but the spraying should evidently begin as soon as the 

 young shoots are three or four inches high, and be repeated once 

 a week till the blossoms begin to open. 



While at Marlboro, the attention of the Botanist was called to a 

 diseased chestnut tree. It was a young tree with sickly looking 

 foliage and a few dead branches. It was suffering from the chest- 

 nut bark disease about which much that is sensational and needlessly 

 alarming and pessimistic has recently been published. This is the 

 only instance recorded of its occurrence in Ulster county and, with 

 one exception, the most northern station for it in this State. It has 

 been reported from as far north and west as Cooperstown but no 

 specimens from that locality have been examined and it probably 

 does not yet occur west of the Hudson river valley, unless possibly 

 in a few widely separated and limited, isolated stations. The most 

 northern station for this disease is Vischer's Ferry, Saratoga 

 county. It is an apparently outlying station, no intervening one 

 between it and Marlboro being known. 



In 1899 a census of the species of plants found in Bonaparte 

 swamp, Lewis county, was taken and a list of the names of the 

 species was published in the report for that year. The number of 

 flowering plants and ferns found there is 128. The swamps and 

 marshes of the State are a part of its natural resources. They are 



