THE SMALLER FUNGI. 567 
out regard to the identity or distinctness of the plant upon 
which it is a parasite.” (p. 6.) 
It is an old and erroneous opinion which some of our farm- 
ers yet entertain, and which they have received by tradi- 
tion from their ancestry, who brought it with them from the 
“old country,” that the cluster-cups on the leaves of the bar- 
berry were capable of producing the blight and mildew upon 
grain, and that as an exemption from, or security against, 
such a fate, every barberry-bush should be effectually exter- 
minated from the grain-fields, if, by careless husbandry or 
purposely for its fruit, it should be found bordering them. 
“This opinion,” says our author, Fig. 1. 
“even received the support of , 
Sir Joseph Banks, but’ no fungi 
can be much more distinct than 
those found on grain crops, and 
this species on the leaves of the 
barberry.* In this instance the 
cups are elongated and cylindri- 
cal, and the spots on the upper 
surface of the leaf are reddish, 
bright, and distinct; the teeth - 
on the edge of the cup are 
White and brittle, and the orange 
Spores copious.” (Fig. 1; a, leaf 
a barberry, with cluster-cups, Æcidium berberidis; b, a por- 
tion magnified ; c, the same seen sidewise). 
Very singular and curious clusters of excresences occur 
on the leaves of the apple tree, pear tree, and mountain-ash 
bush, and are very prominent on the leaves of the quince tree, 
and especially of the wild apple tree of the West, consisting 
of large peridia, pointed at the tops, and so swollen below 
as to bear a rude resemblance to urns, the edges split into 
Mt as he Cie ee 

+ . . 
Mla his fungus and Puccinia graminis have been recently determined s Aam 
ree to be one and the same plant. See Dr. Liitken’s Review 12 the preceding 
of the NATURALIST. 
