Notes \ 
270 
The lily attacked in Bermuda is not the same as that which suffers 
in England, but a dwarf variety of the longiflorum , the so-called Lilium 
Harrisii , while that attacked in England is the Lilium candidum. 
The environment required by the fungus, and its method of growth, 
are, however, the same in both cases. It flourishes only in warm 
moist weather, being readily checked either by cold or by dry heat. 
In the ordinary course of events the fungus-spores germinate upon 
the surface of the leaves or flowers, soon penetrating and ramifying 
through the tissues, until, the conditions continuing favorable, both 
flowers and foliage droop and rot away, leaving only the bare stalk. 
A. L. KEAN, 
Mass. Inst, of Technology, Boston, U.S.A. 
THE ONION DISEASE IN BERMUDA. — In the Kew 
Bulletin, No. 10, Mr. A. E. Shipley published an account of the 
onion disease, of which he had made a careful study in Bermuda. 
He attributes the disease to the ravages of a parasite ( Peronospora 
Schleideniana). More lately Mr. Kingo Miyabe, having worked with 
material sent from Bermuda, published in the Annals of Botany 1 
a paper on Macrosporium parasiiicum. In the appendix of this 
latter article Prof. Farlow states that in making these investigations 
it was desired to show ‘ whether the Macrosporium was merely a 
fungus which had attacked plants previously suffering from Peronospora , 
as most botanists would suppose, or whether it might not of itself 
cause a disease of onions/ Whether this is so or not is most im- 
portant both from an economic and from a scientific standpoint. 
Mr. Shipley does not, however, seem to consider that Mr. Miyabe’s 
experiments on this subject are entirely conclusive 2 . 
It is not my intention to discuss this question, but only to say, 
that while in Bermuda in the winters of 1888 and 1889 I studied 
the disease, and my observations correspond with those of Mr. 
Shipley, who says that, though he examined many hundred diseased 
onions in all states of attack, he never saw one suffering from the 
black mildew ( Macrosporium ) which had not previously been attacked 
by the white ( Peronospora ). So that it would seem to me that 
whatever are the possibilities of Macrosporium growing as a parasite, 
1 No. ix, 1889. 
3 Annals of Botany, No. x, 1889. 
