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V. — The Gladiolus Disease. 
By WoRTHiNaTON Gr. Smith, F.L.S. 
Plates CLXIII. and CXLIV.. 
For many years past the Gladiolus has been subject to a damaging 
and singular disease. As in many other diseases of plants, all sorts 
of conflicting opinions have been expressed regarding the nature of 
the disease — some growers almost denying the existence of any 
disease whatever, whilst others have described it as so bad as to 
threaten the almost total extinction of the Gladiolus as a garden 
plant in this country. As in the case of the murrain of potatoes, 
peach blister, &c., different observers have had different conditions 
of the host plant in view ; some writers have attributed the disease 
to a fungus, whilst others have totally denied the presence of any 
fungus whatever. Amongst all these conflicting opinions the fact 
remains that there is a Gladiolus disease, and one singular in its 
nature, for the cause is at present imperfectly understood. 
As far as my experience goes the Gladiolus disease is invariably 
most virulent in damp, heavy soils, and in wet seasons ; in well- 
drained, dry soils the disease is almost unknown. It is much more 
destructive in England than in France, simply because the latter 
country has a clearer and less humid atmosphere. Just as in my 
experience of the potato murrain I have found the first attack to 
be almost invariably made upon the seed tuber whilst in the 
ground, so I have observed in the Gladiolus the first part attacked 
is almost invariably the seed-corm which is planted, though the 
attack may be made hefore as well as after planting. When 
growth commences the diseased condition of the seed-corm rapidly 
spreads to the sprouting leaves and petioles, and the plant of the 
year is destroyed. It does not follow as a consequence that the 
new offsets must be diseased, for the offsets from a diseased corm are 
frequently quite sound, though it is possible they may have the 
germs of disease in their constitution, which will only show them- 
selves in a bad form in the spring which follows. It is exactly the 
same in the potato disease. Under certain conditions of dryness, 
diseased seed potatoes will produce healthy plants and tubers free 
from the murrain. When the corm of the Gladiolus is badly 
diseased it is shrivelled, and permeated throughout with a rich red- 
brown colour. When the corms are lifted from a damp soil they 
are infested with the spawn of different fungi, and as decomposition 
goes on the corms are at length totally destroyed by diverse fungi, 
infusoria, nematoid worms and mites. 
I have often examined the diseased corms of Gladioli, and made 
notes of the various parasitic fungi found in and upon them, but 
