88 
Aim at producing a fungus-proof variety of cane by propagating 
from thos canes that remain unattacked when growing in an infected 
distric 
G. M. 
January 2, 1894. 
r Massee has since been able to identify the discase with one which 
exit in Australia and which has been described with ability by Dr. 
Cobb, Pathologist to the Dejastineti of Agriculture, New South Wales. 
In the following note he has furnished a comprehensive review of our 
present scientific knowledge of the fungus producing it :— 
In Dr. Cobb's report on * Diseases of the Sugar-cane”’ in the Clarence 
River district, New Scuth Wales (Agricultural Gazette of New South 
Wales, October 1893) a widespread disease is described, and said to 
sed by Trichospheria sacchari, Mass., to which attention was first 
Pv from the West Indies (Kew Bellet, 1893, pp. 149-152). It 
has since been identified in Mauritius; and now that its presence has 
been demonstrated in Australia, and also in North-West India, as proved 
by its presence on a specimen of Saccharum officinarum from Saharan- 
pur, received in 1892, it is perhaps not too much to assume that this 
isease is present, in greater or less abundance, wherever the sugar-cane 
is cultivated. 
In common with many Spheriaceous fungi, T'richospheria presents 
itself under more than one form during the ee ard of "n life-cycle ; 
from each other in general appearance accounts "i the different names 
pis fungus has received. Of these stages the Melanconium condition 
best known ; being the conidial form destined for the rapid repr 
ation and dissemination of the species, 2d is most widely diffused, and 
also most conspicuous, on account of the enormous quantities of conidia 
or Pod welive bodies that are being Gousentty liberated in the form of 
ack mass on the surface. The disease is caused by this phase 
of the fungus. The two remaining conidial forms, as well as the highest 
or ascigerous condition, are only developed when the cane is thoroughly 
rotten, and consequently have escaped the attention id the emen or 
they may only be developed at rare jon irregular intervals, a 
known that the Melanconium stage ca n reproduce itself condat, 
without the intervention of any other form. 
It is somewhat remarkable evils y Sitges tage a fungus e from es 
purely scientific side, escaped a up to within the three 
our years, yet such appears to oe thes ase, and its séemopottian distri- 
bution appears to be most readily explained by supposing it to have 
been imported along with its host, the sugar-cane 
The true native country of the goa pna scems to ype vr" e 
but what little evidence there is points to an Eastern origin. 
examining the numerous specimens of nif ve tan ifii um in the 
Kew herbarium, traces of the Trichospheria were noted on specimens 
from India and ’ Borneo, received many years ago, whereas the material 
at command showed no sign of its presence in the New World previous 
to the sudden outbreak in the West Indies. 
à X 
