The Gladiolus Disease. By Wortliington G. Smith. 305 
till lately nothing has struck me as being especially new or 
different from what one might expect to find upon decaying bulbs 
or corms of any variety. 
There is, however, a puzzling and singular mycelial growth, 
commonly found upon diseased Gladiolus corms, which has been 
pointed to with good reason as the probable cause of the disease. 
This mycelium is not peculiar to the Gladiolus, for the same pest 
destroys the bulbs of Crocus sativus, the bulbs of Narcissus, and 
attacks potatoes, asparagus, and other plants. It was described long 
ago by Dr. Montague, and is known in France under the name of 
Tacon, and in this country as " copper-web," or Bhizoctonia cro- 
eorum, D.C. This " copper-web " is obviously very imperfectly 
understood, for at present the fruit is unknown : in fact, the very 
name of Ehizoctonia (like Khizomorpha) has almost fallen out 
of use. 
In March of the present year the Eev. H. H. Dombrain fur- 
nished me with a Gladiolus corm in a very bad state of disease. It 
presented the usual appearances of the Gladiolus disease as just 
described, and was a mature seed-corm destined to bloom this year, 
and not a young offset. On minutely examining this corm under 
the microscope I found all the cells and starch destroyed, probably 
from the previous presence of some corrosive mycelium, and the 
whole interior more or less filled with the bodies here illustrated 
(Plate CLXIII.). Whether these bodies are in any way connected 
with the threads described under Ehizoctonia there is no evidence to 
show, for in the first instance we get threads without fruit, and in 
the new instance now brought forward, fruit without threads, but 
both the threads and fruit apparently produce the same effect of 
disease upon the corm. Further investigation must clear up this 
point, but in the meanwhile the bodies detected by me are un- 
doubtedly new. 
Attention may here be called to the large and magnificent 
crystals so abundant in Gladiolus corms, and shown in this illus- 
tration. Crystals are always formed in cells, but here the great 
crystals are many times larger than the largest of the decomposed 
cells of the corm. This phenomenon can only be explained by the 
probable fact of the crystals aggregating and recrystallizing after 
the cells have been destroyed by the corrosive mycelium. 
Different views have been expressed as to the nature of the 
compound spores found this year in Gladiolus corms by me. At 
first sight they appear to superficially resemble the resting spores 
of a Peronospora, but this view may be at once dismissed. They 
greatly resemble Papulaspora, but I am convinced by several 
characters that they do not belong to this genus, or indeed to any 
mould, but to the order Oaeomacei. 
These compound spores bear a strong resemblance to the spores 
