272 PLANT DISEASES 



The fruit is the part attacked, and when gently pressed 

 between finger and thumb readily squirts out its contents, 

 hence the popular name adopted. Berries attacked show 

 at first a circular patch from ashy-grey to slaty-blue in 

 colour, dotted and speckled with very numerous gregarious 

 and confluent tubercles or pustules, for a long time covered 

 by epidermis. The affected surface usually occupies about 

 a third of the grape, sometimes almost the whole, and is 

 somewhat rough in appearance. Towards the end of the 

 season the berries dry partially, but are always pliable. 



The stroma of the fungus is more or less columnar, and 

 bears the perithecia on its surface. Conidia, oblong or 

 oval, minute. Various other forms of vegetative bodies, 

 supposed by the author to be reproductive in function, are 

 produced on the stroma. 



No experiments relating to preventive means have been 

 tried. 



M'Alpine, Add. to Fungi on the Vine in Australia, p. 

 23, pi. iv. 



Phoma solani, Halsted. — Dr. Halsted has described and 

 illustrated, in the N. Jersey Agric. Expt. Station Report, 

 1 89 1, a 'damping off' of seedling egg-plants caused by a 

 Phoma. The disease attacks the seedlings at the base of 

 the stem, the fruit of the fungus appearing as exceedingly 

 minute black dots on the diseased parts. 



Phoma hennebergii, Kuhn. — Often proves very destructive 

 to the wheat crop, attacking the glumes and causing the 

 ears to shrivel. The fungus sometimes also appears on the 

 leaves. 



Frank, Zeitsch. fUr Pflanzenkr., vol. iii. 1893, p. 28. 



