- 7 - 

 feuchter v/ittercmg." Bauer (15) thought that the srgot sclerotivun was merely 

 a rnojistrosity ox transfornation of the ewbryo of the "gerirans" of rje and those 

 gramineous plants which are subject to tlie disease. Concerning the cause of 

 it he IS not certain, hut h>3 considers tliat it is neither due to the rainy and 

 7jQt seasons nor to insect attacks but tliat it lijay he induced by certain coniJ-i- 

 tions of tlie soil, Tries in his later vrarlc described in 1829 the sclerotiuiQ oi 

 ergot as a fungus under the name of S-oeriaoedia clavus . but he still believed 

 that tlie vfhole sclerotium was a diseased grass seed and again expressed tMs 

 opinion in his publication of 1849 (74) » 



l^veilld (154^5 in 1820, noticed th^t tlae ergot coramenced v/ith honey 

 d&v7 secretions, and considering this stage to be a distinct fungus parasitizing 

 the ergot sclerotium, he proposed for it the x??,Ke of .Sphacelia seg;etum Since 

 his tiae izany others, Fhilidor, Quekett, and J. Sraith,have vainly atteirroted to 

 explain the qtiestion of ergot foriixition, 



J.. Smith (236; considered ergot to be a -constitutional disease of 

 tiao plant, brought about by tiie reproductive bodies of the fungxis (conidia 

 found in the ■-honey dov/'O being absorbed during ganrdnation, and carried up by 

 the fluids of the plant and becoMng developed in tlie f;:uctific3-tion even be- 

 fore tlie opening of the floral ervolopes, b\it -,-'icthcr the ove,rium is infcctod 

 \/ith the disease at ohis time or ihcther it is coni;vjani Gated to it during irapreg- 

 nation froiTi the already diseased anther, is a question still to be seen.-' 



In 1642, in his M^moire sur la genre Sclorotiuja (156;, I6veilld, to 

 whoE! we <Me the first inforntition reg-ar-ding the tiaae nature of ergot, again ex- 

 pjressed tho opinion that ergot v/as a iiX>nstrosity of grass seed,, iiile L^veillt, 

 whose v/orfc has been duplicated -.vithout eiiception, dr-plaiaod the nature of the 

 sclerotia of other plants, he still considered the ergot sclerotiuia of the graii : 

 -^nd. grasses (no\/ called Sclerqtj uin cla-Tis by DeCandolle) as a degenerated Iteme.'': 



