AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 



OF THE 



STRAITS 



AND 



rEDEKATED riALAY STATES. 



No. 12.] DECEMBER, 1910. [Vol. IX 



A PRELIMINARY NOTE ON THE FUNGUS 

 CAUSING THE DIE-BACK " DISEASE 

 OF CACAO AND OF PARA RUBBER 



By Keith Bancroft, b. a. 

 Assistant MycologisJ, F.M.S. 



In some recent publications* the author has had occasion to 

 refer to the necessity for making a complete investigation of the 

 life-history of Diplodia cacaoicoJa, P. Henn., the fungus which has 

 long been known to cause the " die-back " disease of the stem of the 

 cacao plant and the "brown rot " of the cacao pods. Since these 

 publications were issued, further work has revealed two facts which are 

 considered to be of some importance ; the first of these is the establish- 

 ment of the identity between the fungi causing the " die back " of cacao 

 and of Para rubber, and the second is the discovery of the mature form 

 or ascigerous condition of the fungus. Before describing the work 

 which has led to these conclusions it will, perhaps, be better to briefly 

 summarise the work of several authors on the fungus more especially 

 from a historical point of view. 



Diplodia cacaoicola was described by Hennings on wood of cacao 

 from the Cameroons in 1896. Howard, in 1901, investigated a die- 

 back disease of cacao in Grenada, West Indies, nnd showed that the 

 fungus which caused the disease was identical with this species. 

 Since then the fungus has been shown to occur on cacao throughout 

 the West Indian Islands and has also been reported from St. 

 Thome, West Africa, Java, Samoa, the Philippines and Surinam. 



* Kew Bulletin of Miscelhmeous Information, 1910, No. 3. A Handbook of the Fungus 

 Diseases of West Indian Plants, p. li. 



