440 
NOTES ON UROMYCES AMYQDALI, COOKE : A 
SYNONYM OF PUCCINI A PS UNI, PERS. 
(PRUNE RUST). 
By D. McAlpine. 
( Communicated by J. II. Maiden.) 
(Plates xxxi., lower division, xxxn. and xxxiii.) 
I have purposely placed the synonym first, because the fungus 
which it represents is still considered by Dr. Cooke, one of the 
authors of the name, a new one, and it will be part of the object 
of this paper to show that the Australian species thus named in 
Dr. Cooke's " Handbook " is really the same as that described by 
Persoon in his "Synopsis Methodica Fungorum" towards the end 
of last century. 
This leaf-rust is of great economic importance, since it attacks 
such valuable fruit trees as the peach and nectarine, plum and 
apricot, cherry and almond, causing them prematurely to shed 
their leaves, and, as a consequence, either to bear no fruit or only 
small quantities of an inferior kind. As the peach-tree forms its 
fruit on the previous season's wood, it is evident that the succeed- 
ing crop will be affected as well, hence it is highly desirable to 
know the true nature and the right affinities of this fungus, 
thereby to be the better able to follow its life-history and to 
prevent its further spread. 
History of Name. 
The Australian fungus to which Dr. Cooke assigned the name 
of Uromyces amygdali was collected by H. Tryon, Government 
Entomologist of Queensland, in February, 1886, on peach and 
almond leaves, and forwarded almost immediately to Dr. Cooke 
for identification. As indicated in his " Handbook of Australian 
Fungi," this name had previously been used by him in Ravenel's 
" Fungi Americani Exsiccati," issued between 1878 and 1882. 
