Report of the Consulting Botanist for 1885. 
scopic worms, closely resembling in size and appearance the 
worms that cause the disease of purples in wheat, and which I 
have figured and described at length in the Society's ' Journal ' 
(vol. xviii., New Series). These minute nematoid worms 
having destroyed the main axis, the plant in its effort to main- 
tain its life has thrown out new shoots from the axils of the 
leaves below the injured portion. These shoots being in their 
turn attacked and destroyed, further efforts are made to produce 
other shoots lower down the stem. The original leaves of the 
main stem being yet vigorous and closely surrounding the stem, 
the young shoots have difficulty in pushing their way through ; 
and further, weakened by the attacks of the worms, they are 
arrested in their growth, and appear as crumpled and swollen 
buds around the base of the plants. A similar injury to a plant 
of wheat is figured and described in the paper to which I have 
referred. But it is probable that the species of worms are 
different, and that the vibrio causing the injury to oats would 
not attack wheat, for Mr. Orlebar, of Podington, Wellingborough, 
informs me that in 1884 he had a field of oats so injured by 
vibrio that he ploughed it up and fallowed it ; and this year, at 
the time when the oats in a neighbouring field were being 
destroyed by the vibrio, that field was producing a fine crop of 
wheat. This treatment of the diseased oats would not have 
destroyed the worms, and, though they were no doubt present 
in the soil, the wheat was not attacked by them. They attack 
equally all kinds of oats. Neither the quality of the soil nor 
the previous cropping or manuring seems to have any relation 
to the presence of the worms. And the disease, where it does 
occur, may be inexplicably limited. Mr. Orlebar says that in 
his case, " the diseased plot is about six acres in extent ; a small 
part of the same field, about half an acre — a long narrow strip, — 
is separated by a roadway about five yards wide, but without 
any fence, from the diseased portion. On this narrow strip no 
disease is visible, and the oats are many inches higher. ' The 
narrow strip was last year (1884) sown with thousand- headed 
kale (a poorish crop) instead of turnips, and the sheep were on 
this for only about two days, so the strip should be poorer than 
the large piece." The disease is called by the labourers at 
Wellingborough " bizzened oats," a corruption, Mr. Orlebar 
thinks, of burst or ruptured, for it is the same term as the 
labourers apply to pigs when ruptured, and to onions affected 
with a disease like that of the oats. In Yorkshire the local 
name, as Mr. Scarth, of Stanghow, Skelton, informs me, is 
" seging." 
It is impossible to do anything to cure the injured plants, as 
the minute worms are in the interior of the stem, and nothing 
