HORSE -HAIR BLIGHTS. 
53 
placed in a denser bush, and as at the end of the rains (July) 
it had not travelled to the tea branches, this was regarded as 
another failure ; but in the following wet season (November) 
it was found that the mycelium had become attached in three 
places to the leaves and stem of the tea. The delay was no 
doubt caused by the unsuitability of the isolated tea bushes ; 
but the case is the more interesting in that it shows that the 
mycelium on detached branches can survive the comparatively 
dry months of August (rainfall 6*63 inches) and September 
(rainfall 2*37 inches). The total rainfall of the dry season 
(December- March), which i)foved fatal to the first experiment, 
was 13*49 inches, and the four months included periods of 
nineteen, seventeen, and twelve days without rain. 
In a further experiment two twigs of nutmeg bearing the 
mycelium were tied to branches of other nutmeg trees in 
shaded situations. From the twig which received most 
“ drip ” from the overhanging branches the mycelium spread 
to the new host in nine days. From the other, which was 
sheltered by a thick cover of foliage, forty -three days elapsed 
before the mycehum had become attached. The rainfall for 
the first nine days was 6*25 inches, and for the whole period 
13*05 inches. These experiments demonstrate the- possi- 
bility that horse -hair bhght may be spread by pieces of 
mycelium conveyed with twigs to other bushes by the wind ; 
but here, again, the growth on tea presents another difficulty 
in those localities in which it is confined to the interior of a 
dense tea bush ; for wind-carried mycelium would be arrested 
at the exterior of the bush, and would be compelled to grow 
from that position. It seems probable that in spite of these 
other possible methods, the chief mode of distribution is by 
means of spores. Spores shed upon a glass slip soon germinate 
in a damp atmosphere ; indeed, a spore print ” deposited 
in a closed glass dish usually contains a large number of 
germinating spores after about twelve hours. But infection 
experiments made with the spores on the older stems of tea 
bushes have up to the present been unsuccessful. 
It would appear that, since a strand of horse-hair blight 
has a single definite growing point, it would afford eminently 
suitable material for the determination of the rate of growth 
