528 



JOURNAL OF TBE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



authors appear to have been unaware of a note on S'pongos'pora pub- 

 hshed in 1892 by de Lagerheim.* 



In calhng attention to the presence of the parasite in Quito, South 

 iVmerica, de Lagerheim states that he beheves that Brunchorst's 

 Sjioucjospora Solani is identical with Wallroth's Erysibe suhtenmiea , 

 but as he had not access to the pubhcations of Wallrotii, Martius, 

 and Berkeley, he was not able to decide the question with certainty. 

 If, however, his isupposition were correct, he points out that the fungus 

 should be called Spongospora suhierranea Wallr. 



The same idea had meanwhile occurred apparently independently 

 to Johnson,! who in 1909, after reviewing most of the literature o'f 

 the subject, adopts the undoubtedly correct name of Spongospora suh- 

 ierranea Wallr. for the organism ; and this name has been used by 

 some subsequent authors, including Osborn | and the present writer, § 

 but not by Mas see or Horne. 



HoRNE in the paper in this Journal referred to at the outset main- 

 tains that it is desirable to retain Brunchorst's name, Spongospora 

 Solani for the organism on the grounds that, firstly, it is not certain 

 that the organism described by Wallroth, Martius, and Berkeley 

 was really Spongospora, and, secondly, even if that were so, there is 

 some difficulty in deciding whether Wallroth or Martius (who pub- 

 lished in the same year) holds priority. 



There is, however, in reality no such difficulty, for, as has already 

 been pointed out, Bartling distinctly lays down the priority of Wall- 

 roth in the matter, and, further, Martius himself definitely states that 

 Wallroth had already fully described the organism, and he even 

 quotes a word {pseudgsporis) taken from Wallroth's description || as 

 equivalent to his own word glohulis. Curiously enough, Horne himself 

 at one point in his paper appears to admit the priority of Wallroth 

 when he says " An earlier record of Wallroth's Erysibe subterranea 

 occurs in Versam. Deut. Nat. und Aer'zte Braunschweig 1838-1841." 

 The dates given refer however to the years in which the Versamm-, 

 lungen were held, that at Brunswick being in 1841, but the report of it 

 was not published until the following year 1842, and this date Horne 

 quotes correctly in his bibliography. It is quite clear that Wallroth 

 was the first to describe the organism, and that Martius was ac- 

 quainted with at least two of the three descriptions due to WallrotS 

 before he published his own, for in addition to quoting one word from 

 Wallroth's account in the Beitrdge he also cites the description in 

 Regensb. Bok Zeit. [Flora] 1842. 



With regard to the first point, I do not agree that the descriptions 



* DE Lagerheim, " Remarks on the Fungus of a Potato Scab {Spongospora 

 Solani Brunch.)," Journal of Mycology, vol. vii. No. 2, March 1892, p. 103. 



t JoH]srso]sr, Further Observations on Powdery Potato Scab, Spongospora subterranea 

 Wallr. 



% Osborn, Annals of Botany, vol. xxv. pp. 271 and 327. 



§ Pethybridge, Journ. Dep. Agric. and Tech. Inst. Ireland, vol. x. 1910, p. 254, 

 vol. xi.. 1911, p. 441, vol. xii. 1912, p. 351. 



II Johnson {''''Further Observations, eto.^" p. 169) is in error in supposing that 

 Martius incorrectly quoted Wallroth. ^'hc word pseudosporis is correctly lakt'Ji 

 from Wallroth's paper in the Beitrage. 



