MICOGRAPHIC STUDY OF SAFFRON DISEASE. 



21 



seated upon downy stalks, more than twice as long as themselves ; 

 they are pale-green, and only a little darker on the upper than 

 on t lie under side. The flowers are unknown to me. The 

 spines are not very hard or conspicuous, but are broad and deeply 

 divided in a palmate manner. This little plant is perfectly 

 hardy. 



B. coriaria, Royle, in the Botanical Register for 1841, t. 66, 

 is as deciduous as the Common Berberry. 



B. brachybotrys, a Himalayan bush, described by Mr. Edge- 

 worth as growing from 2 to 3 feet high, has been raised by 

 Mr. Glendinning ; but at present the plants are mere seedlings, 

 and nothing can be said about them. 



II. — A fflicrographic Study of the Disease of Saffron known 

 under the name of Tacon. Read before the Society of 

 Biology at Paris, Dec. 2, 1848, by C. Montagne, D.M. 



The Saffron Crocus (Crocus sativus, L.) is a plant known at a 

 very early period, and admitted from the beauty of its tiowers as 

 an ornament of our gardens ; its economical uses however and its 

 medical qualities render it still more important, and altogether 

 worthy of fixing our attention. The interest attached to its 

 successful culture has made it a matter of duty to study carefully 

 the diseases to which it is subject, either with a view to their 

 prevention, while there is still an opportunity, or to limit, as 

 much as is in our power, the terrible ravages which they 

 commit. 



Amongst these, there are two especially which have long 

 excited the attention of cultivators. The first, which is not 

 properly speaking a pathological affection, though frequently 

 productive of death, is due to the presence of a parasitic fungus, 

 living at the expense of the plant which it attacks. This fungus 

 was classed amongst truffles by Duhamel, who gave the first 

 good description of it in the Memoirs of the Academy for 1728, 

 and has since been figured by Bulliard under the name of Tuber 

 parasiticum, which Persoon afterwards changed into Sclerotium 

 crocorum. Decandolle finally raised it to the dignity of a genus, 

 and called it Rhizoctonia. Whatever name we may retain, 

 whether with Decandolle and Fries we adopt the genus Rhizoc- 

 tonia, or with Desvaux and Leveille we consider its species as 

 Sclerotia, this singular parasite consists of sclerotioid almond- 

 shaped tubercles, united by byssoid filaments going from one to 

 the other, forming a sort of subterraneous net. It is by means 

 of these filaments, which are attached to the rootlets of the 

 plant, or which creep over the surface of the bulbs after having 



