lOO 
A NOTE ON INDIAN WHEAT-RUSTS. 
Attention was directed to the onset of the attack by tht appear- 
ance of the affected plants. The leaves that form a tuft close to the 
soil and surround the bases of the culms seemed within 24 hours 
to have become suddenly wilted and yellow, the soil in a circular 
patch round the base of the plant having at the same time become 
of a rusty-red colour. Close examination of the plants showed 
that the blades of these yellow and suddenly-wilted leaves were 
completely inrolled from the margins"; on their being flattened out it 
was seen that the upper surface of the blade was closely covered 
by an eruption of small circular orange-red pustules; the rusty hue 
imparted to the soil in the immediate neighbourhood of the plant 
was found to be due to the shedding of uredospores from these 
pustules in quantities sufficient to form a thick almost continuous 
surface-coating. The lower culm-leaves were still green ; their upper 
surface was, however, covered with a crop of uredosporic pustules, 
and they showed that the wilting process had commenced because 
the edges of the leaf-blades were already slightly inrolled. The 
higher culm-leaves were in much the condition of those below, ex- 
cept that the pustules were more sparsely scattered and the edges 
of the leaf -blades were not yet at all inrolled. 
The limitation of the uredosporic pustules of this rust to 
the upper surface of the leaf-blades observed in the case of the 
plants first attacked was found in the course of subsequent numer- 
ous and prolonged examinations to be an almost unbroken rule. It 
was not at all common, though instances did occur, to find a pustule 
that occupied the whole thickness of the leaf, and that burst through 
the epidermis of both its surfaces. But to find a pustule breaking 
through the lower surface only was an extremely rare occurrence. 
In keeping with this observation also is the fact that it seems very 
rare with this particular “ rust,” and then only in very badly affected 
plants, , to find uredosporic pustules on the outside of the leaf-sheath. 
Instances of this were, however, met with both at Shibpur and else- 
where, and in one or two instances pustules even appeared on and 
burst through the epidermis of the stem itself. Not a single in- 
stance of the occurrence of uredospores on the pales or glumes or 
within the flower was met with in the case of this* rust. But per- 
haps its most noteworthy feature, so far at least as this particular 
outbreak at Shibpur is concerned, was the entire absence of teleuto- 
spores. In spite of prolonged and repeated Systematic search for 
these, during the time the wheat was in the ground, they were never 
met with. 
