68 
Sharpies and Lamb our ne. — Observations in 
Conclusions. 
The general impression obtained from the results of the workers cited 
is that all the Bud-rot diseases of Eastern and Western Hemispheres are 
attributable to one or more species of Phytophthora , but, judging from our 
experiments, it would appear that what has been proved is that Phytophthora 
palmivora (Butler) functions as an obligate parasite on the tender central 
leaves of most palms, but has not been proved to cause rotting of the 
‘ heart-tissues/. This obligate parasitism has been very definitely de- 
monstrated in India by Butler (2) and Shaw and Sundaraman (8), and 
lately by Ashby (1) in the West Indies. However, this cannot be regarded 
as any proof of the cause of the rotting of the bud-tissues, no more than 
the death and falling of the central leaves in our experiments can be 
considered as proving the rotting of the central bud. In these latter cases, 
if the bud was rotted, then the conception that the slightest invasion of the 
heart-tissues by a parasitic organism will result in death must go by the 
board. 
The question then arises, ‘ What is Bud-rot ? ’ The conception of 
Bud-rot causing death of the tree must be strictly limited to the rotting 
of the heart-tissues ; a diseased condition of the central leaves does not 
necessarily connote the death of the tree. 
Our conclusions are well stated in a review signed ‘ W. N.’ in the 
‘West Indian Agricultural News’. 1 The writer reviews Reinking’s recent 
work (7), and says: ‘Notices of Mr. Reinking’s paper have already 
appeared in the Journal of the Agricultural Society of Trinidad and of 
the Board of Agriculture in British Guiana, and the announcement has 
naturally aroused the greatest interest, from its possible bearing on the 
Bud-rot problems m the West Indies. 
‘The present reviewer, when recently in Trinidad, found a tendency on 
the part of Coco-nut planters to assume that the results obtained in the 
Philippines were immediately applicable to the local affection, while the 
British Guiana Journal in an editorial comment states: “There is little 
doubt that a careful scientific investigation here will prove a similar relation- 
ship between Phytophthora faberi and Bud-rot.” 
‘ Assumptions of this kind are to be deprecated, and there are special 
reasons for caution in the case of Bud-rot. The writer (W. N.) has insisted 
from time to time on recognition of the fact that the existence of Bud-rot 
in coconut palms is not of itself evidence of the presence of a specific 
disease, or of disease at all, in the ordinary sense of the word. Bud-rot is 
a condition which may be induced by mechanical and chemical or parasitic 
interference with the life processes of the palm. The material of the heart 
is extremely tender, and when the natural resistance 2 of the living tissue 
1 Vol. xviii, No. 461, December 27, 1919. 
2 Possibly greater than is usually thought. — A. S. and J. L. - 
