AMERICAN 
JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
Vol. II February, 1915 No. 2 
SOME EFFECTS OF THE BROWN-ROT FUNGUS UPON THE 
COMPOSITION OF THE PEACHY 
LoN A. Hawkins 
The morphology a nd life- history of Sclerotinia cinerea (Bon.) 
Schroter, the fungus causing brown-rot of the peach, have been in- 
vestigated with considerable care. The fact that this fungus is 
parasitic upon a number of other hosts is also well established. Not so 
much attention, however, has been paid to the effect of the fungus 
upon the composition of the peach; and it was to obta'in some informa- 
tion upon this subject that the experiments described in this paper 
were carried out.^ 
In these experiments most of the peaches were inoculated in the 
laboratory, though one series of analyses was made using peaches 
which had become infected under orchard conditions. The inocula- 
tions were made from stock cultures of the fungus grown on potato 
agar. The fungus was originally isolated from fruit in the early stages 
of brown-rot by removing portions of the deeper-lying tissue and 
transferring them to tubes of sterile potato agar. Pure cultures were 
obtained by this method and the fungus maintained in stock culture 
throughout the investigation. 
The method for studying the effect of the fungus upon the tissue 
of the peach was somewhat similar to that used by Behrens (i) in 
^ From the Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Office 
of Plant Physiological and Fermentation Investigations. Published by the per- 
mission of the Secretary of Agriculture. 
2 The writer's thanks are due to Mr. J. W. Kelly, laboratory technician in this 
office, for assistance in the experimental part of this work. 
[The Journal for January (2: 1-70) was issued 18 Feb., 1915.] 
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