36 



THE COCO-NUT 



CHAP. 



At the first appearance the diseased part should be cut out, 

 the wound burnt with a torch, and then covered with hot coal 

 tar. The pieces cut out must be burnt. When the disease has 

 advanced so far that this local treatment is impossible, the tree 

 must be cut down and burnt. This treatment is said to have 

 been successful. 



Reports in subsequent years indicate that the disease is 

 well under control. 



One planter stated that he had known the disease 

 for sixty years, but it was first made a subject of report 

 in 1903. It was found along the Negumbo Canal, at 

 Hendala, also at Nalla, where in 1906 more than 3000 

 trees were found infected. None had died, and the 

 yield was not evidently affected, but the disease was 

 spreading. The disease is also known at Veyangoda, 

 Kurunegala, Mirigama, Heneratgoda, Marawila, Am- 

 balangoda, and Dumbala. It is alsoi found in India. 

 However, Butler has found the same fungus on the 

 trunks of various apparently vigorous palms in India, and 

 does not regard it as at all injurious. The same fungus 

 does not necessarily produce the same effect under 

 different conditions ; and, as is true of various human 

 diseases, there may be light forms and dangerous forms 

 of the one pest. 



This fungus is also charged with causing the pine- 

 apple disease of Javan cane, another disease of cane in 

 Hawaii and the West Indies, and the canker of coffee. 

 Rorer reports a bleeding disease of coco-nut trunks in 

 the West Indies caused by Thielaviopsis paradoxa, 

 the same fungus also attacking sugar-cane and pine- 

 apple. 



Pestalozzia palmarum. — This is a microscopic 

 fungus parasitic on the leaves of the coco-nut. It was 

 first described from British G-uiana, but seems to occur 

 throughout the tropics. While it must always weaken 

 the trees, it does not often itself kill them, and is not 

 known to have become even locally very destructively 

 epidemic except at Kempit, in the Banjoewangi Presi- 

 dency, Java. This outbreak was studied and reported 



