258 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
albumen of the grain in a diseased state. Contrary to all former 
experiments, after the outside was scraped off, the interior under 
the microscope was found to be filled with globules of fatty oil; 
and the cause was evident. Outside of the ergotised grain were 
‘found a number of small oval or elliptical bodies — 
about the six-hundredth part of an inch in diameter, - 
containing smaller granules, which were found to be 
sporidia of a fungoid plant, attached to filaments 
which developed themselves early in the growth of 
the grain, producing this diseased state. It grows 
in the interior of the ovary of the cultivated wheat 
(Fig. 820), and of some others of the Graminace®. 
At the maturity of the plant which it has posi 
the diseased grain is nearly of the size * an 
its dieceniah colour, ii ane isi01 
fungus would seem to have its birth in some 5 manne? 
in the flower of the wheat-plants; the wasting in- 
fluence is drawn from the — and stamens of 
the parent plant. “ Having,” 
says M. Tulasne, “subjected the 
pulverulent matter which filled 
the ovary to the microscope, 
and especially the parts adjacent 
to the periphery, which seemed 
to ripen more slowly, we recog- 
nised that spores attached them- 
selves to it in great numbers by 
short peduncles, to a sort of trunk, 
or common, thin, colourless ene 
branches of a fragile nature, Tg. i0'r wheat. 
which seem to be re-absor 
or at least to disappear, as the spores they engender 9p" added 
proach maturity. The tissue constituted by them is then ad ae 
to the ovary. This process proceeds until the whole vives dee 
crammed with seeds of the vegetable parasite. When pease : 
germinates,” says M. Tulasne, in continuation, “ its reti the at o- 
tegument is broken at some point of its surface, bat * - i 
Fig. 320. 
Caries on Wheat. 
