•XI MONTHLY. W 
XXL 
COLOMBO, TUNE 2nd, 1902. 
No 12. 
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE CEYLON 
GOVERNMENT MYCOLOGIST AND 
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, 1901. 
FUNGAL DISEASE. 
HE past yeai- has been, from a 
meteorological point of view, 
rather less favourable to the 
growth of fungi than is usual 
in Ceylon. The number of days 
and hours during which the 
atmosphere was laden with mois- 
ture has been fewer, and the 
dry and sunny hours more, in 
nearly all districts than in moat previous years. In 
addition, a good deal of preventive and sanitary woik 
has been done in various districts, and this has 
lessened the number of spore-producing areas to some 
xtent. 
In regard to blights and diseases of staple products 
of the Island, we are at least in as good a position, if 
not better, than in January, 1901. Tea diseases have 
not wrought much havoc, though both leaf and root 
diseases have still to be seriously reckoned with I'l 
cacao the stem and fruit canker are on the decrease, 
and will'continue to be so, if cacao planters do n u 
slacken their measures against this serious disease. 
Some three hundred inquiries have been received 
during the year, chiefly dealing with diseases in tea, 
"acao, coconuts, cardamoms, shade and timber tree?, 
and other estate cultivation-', but a few referring to 
horticultural plants. 
The work of diagnosing the diseases attacking 
specimens sent, and by so doing being in a position to 
recommend preventive or curative measures, is greatly 
helped by an adequate quantity of mateiial being sub- 
mitted for examination, and also when any facts which 
may bear on the disease are sent with the specimens. 
A single leaf or too have on occasions been received, 
with a request for report as to the cause of its abnor- 
mal appearance, and recomraeudations as to treatment, 
with no otiier information. 
The task is then somewhat similar to that of a 
doctor called upon to examine a portion of a dead or 
dying man without any f^cts about the case, and asked 
to recoinmend a course of treatment for this and other 
similar cases. It will greatly help, in a not always 
simple task, it as much material can sent as con- 
venient ; it a leaf disease, then all stages of the blighted 
appearance on old and young leaves, if possible not 
quite dried up. For sending by post, a small tin bos', 
such as a ci.;arette or tobacco box, answers the purpose 
well. Notes as to the time when the disease was first 
noticed ; if tea, how long from pruning, whether on all 
the plants or only some, whether on all leaves or only 
some ; the conditions present, favourable or otherwise, 
such as drought, cold, or excess of rain — all these are 
of much value in forming an opinion as to the causes 
of disease. 
ENVIRONMENTAL DI-EASES. 
Many of the specimens sent for report are found 
0 1 microscopic examination to contain no parasite 
fungi or other organisms, and to be affected by 
what are purely environmenlal diseases, i. e., dne to 
the presence of physical conditions, such as drought, 
excess of water, absence of nutrition in the soil, power- 
ful and continuous wind, lightning, and other snoh 
causes. In these cases, whoi the tissues have been 
found to be free from the presence of any parasitic 
organism and show no signs of having been attacked 
by any insect or other animal, an investigation of the 
conditions under which the plint has been living is 
needful, in order to find out the why ani wherefore o{ 
the evil. 
