538 BULLETIN 347 
there is no logical reason why we should not use it for this disease. Pan- 
tanelli (1911) says this name does not seem very exact, as very different 
alterations of a tree are understood by the word ‘‘ canker.” In a later 
article, however, Pantanelli (1912:869) used the name “ canker.” 
It is true that European writers attach to the name “ canker” the 
additional significance of a callus formation around the diseased area. 
Thus they retain the original Greek neaning of the root of the word, 
which meant an excrescence on the limbs of trees. 
The name “‘ blight ’ has been more generally applied to rapidly spread- 
ing and destructive diseases of herbaceous plants or the herbaceous parts 
of woody plants. As the term “ blight ” in the case of this disease signi- 
fies only a symptom of the disease, not the lesion, it is evidently not so 
appropriate as either of the other two names. The authors of this bulletin 
prefer to use the name “ canker,”’ and in order that the name may be 
entirely specific it should be called the Endothia canker of the chestnut. 
HISTORY 
In the first published account of the Endothia canker, Merkel (1906:97) 
says: ‘ This disease was first noticed in the New York Zoological Park, 
in a few scattered cases which occurred during the summer of 1904.” 
In a letter to the writers Mr. Merkel adds: ‘‘ No indication of the 
chestnut-tree disease was noticed by me previous to the year 1904. In 
1904, however, toward the latter part of the season, I noticed that certain 
very old chestnut trees were suffering in certain portions of their tops from 
some trouble or other, but no investigation was made of the cause. 
Early during the following year, in fact on June 17, I became thoroughly 
alarmed and sent to the Bureau of Forestry a specimen of the disease on 
a young tree and a letter asking for information.”’ 
Metcalf and Collins (1909: 45) state: ‘Even at that time [referring 
to the discovery of Merkel in 1904] it is certain that it had spread over 
Nassau county and Greater New York, and had found lodgment in the 
adjacent counties of Connecticut and New Jersey. No earlier observa- 
tion than this [1904 by Merkel] is recorded, but it is evident that the 
disease, which would of necessity have made slow advance at first, must 
have been in this general locality for a number of years in order to have 
gained such a foothold by 1904. Conspicuous as it is, it is strange that 
the fungus causing this disease was not observed -or collected by any 
mycologist until May, 1905, when specimens were received from New 
Jersey by Mrs. F. W. Patterson, the Mycologist of the Bureau of Plant 
Industry.” 
This was the starting-point of the numerous investigations conducted 
by a large number of workers. Metcalf and Collins (1911: §) state: 
