DE BARY ON MILDEW. 



107 



The most glaring faults in this class of subjects are to be found 

 in the following features, which are in most cases altogether in- 

 compatible with a high position : — 



Open eyes, as they are called, when double flowers show 



any part of the disk or centre. 

 Split petals or florets. 

 Run or confused or fading colours. 

 Roughness of outline or surface. 



XXII. Notice of De Bary's Observations on the supposed con- 

 nexion of Puccinia graminis and JEcidium Berheridis *. By 

 the Eev. M. J. Berkeley, M.A., F.L.S. 



The prevalent notion of a connexion between the barberry-bush 

 and wheat-mildew, has hitherto rested on no scientific foundation. 

 It arose probably from observation that both the shrub and the 

 cereal were subject to rust, without any exact notion as to the 

 nature or structure of either. It was, however, very improbable 

 that the rust of the barberry was productive of mildew, as the latter 

 is often extremely prevalent where not a single barberry-bush is 

 to be found ; and since the districts, for example, the Eens, most 

 subject to mildew are precisely those where the barberry is un- 

 known in a wild state, and where it is not very frequently found 

 in gardens. The question is precisely like that of the supposed 

 origin of the pear-mildew (Roestelia cancellated) from the gelatinous 

 fungus of Savifie, as the Roestelia abounds frequently in parishes 

 where Savine is carefully excluded on account of the dangerous 

 use to which it is put by low herb -vendors. 



Recent observations, however, put the matter in quite a new 

 light, and w r e are therefore happy to give an abstract of De Bary's 

 paper, the subject being one of great interest, whether we regard 

 it from an agricultural or horticultural point of view. The ex- 

 perience of the potato-murrain, the vine-, hop-, peach-, and rose- 

 mildew, as well as other matters less connected with cultivation, 

 lead us to expect that parasitic fungi should present a variety of 

 modes of reproduction, and should assume occasionally very dif- 

 ferent forms ; and this is no less true of fungi w r hich produce the 



* Monatsbericht der Koniglichen Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu 

 Berlin, Jan. 1865, p. 15, tab, 1. 



