632 THE SMALLER FUNGI. 
farmers as the other affections to which their corn crops are 
liable. Perhaps it is not really so extensively injurious, 
although it entirely destroys every ear of corn upon which 
it establishes itself.” 
In England and in Europe the “smut” here alluded to, is 
the Ustilago segetum, attacking the heads of wheat and other 
grain. It is also known in this country, but the one most 
familiar to us and readily observed on account of the size 
of the part of the plant it attacks, is the smut of Indian 
Fig. 3. corn or maize, U. Zee (Fig. 3, spores of Ustil- 
ago maydis, the maize smut, magnified 400 
diameters. From Cooke). ‘The spores in this 
fungus are exceedingly numerous, “simple, 
aik springing from delicate threads 
or in closely packed cells, ultimately breaking 
up into a powdery mass.” Like the aforementioned para- 
sites of Coniomycetes, the smut or Ustilago has mimerous 
destructive forms which attack various portions of different 
living plants. Another European species also: occurring’ in 
the United States according to Dr.: Curtis, is the U- hypo- 
dites, of which we learn fróni a lecture delivered in the 
city of Norwich, E ngland, in 1849, and to be found - in the 
Report of the Commissioner of Patents, Executive Doeu- 
ment, No. 15, Thirty-first Congress, 1849, that “its spores 
are black, round, and very small; that there ‘was a great 
deal of it in 1848, in a field near King’s: ‘Cliffe, almost’ every 
flower stem of the Bromus sı ylvatica being infected by it, and 
in addition to the ruin of the grass it was most pernicious 
According to Léviellé the immense quantity’ of black dust 
resulting eas it in the hay-fields in France, produces disas 
trous consequences on the haymakers, such as violent pains 
and swellings in the head and face, with great irritation over 
the entire system.” 
ike the “brands,” the “smuts,” too, have kinds with 
complex spores, of which one called Pol ycystis, or many- 
cysted smut, attacks the stems of violets, the leaves of but- 

