610 Thiselton-Dyer.—Note on the Sugar-cane 
Nothing is more common than for a Fungus which has 
long possessed merely a scientific interest and has been pre¬ 
served in herbaria in scanty specimens, suddenly to exhibit 
an overpowering fecundity and develop into a scourge. 
Something like this seems to have happened in the West 
Indian cane-fields some ten years ago. A disease made its 
appearance which caused considerable immediate loss and 
apprehension of greater. 
The disease in Barbados exists in two forms which, though 
apparently distinct, there is reason to think have a common 
cause. These are called respectively the ‘ Rind disease ’ and 
the ‘ Root disease.’ 
Rind Disease. 
The following account is condensed from the Kew Bulletin, 
1895, p. 81 :—Canes infected with the Rind Fungus are first 
noticed by dark red or brown marks in one or two joints 
towards the middle or base of the cane. This red patch 
having made its appearance, rapidly spreads upwards and 
downwards ; the infected area darkens in appearance, and is 
evidently rotten. Little black specks make their appearance 
on the cane between the joints, breaking from the inside to 
the surface ; finally the cane shrivels and dries up. 
The bursting through of the epidermis is followed by the 
emission of a black filament, sometimes an inch and a half 
long or even more. The resulting appearance of the cane is 
figured by Massee (Ann. of Bot., vol. VII, pi. 27, figs. 1 and 2) 
and by Prillieux and Delacroix (Bull. Soc. Myc., vol. XI, pi. 
10, fig. A). The filaments are composed of agglutinated 
spores ( Melancomum-stylospores ) which are discharged from 
a conceptacle or pycnidium buried in the tissues of the inter¬ 
node. This phase of the Fungus was first described by 
Cooke (Grevillea, vol. XIX, p. 45) from a Queensland speci¬ 
men as Strumella Sacchari. 
Massee, regarding it as the conidial stage of a Sphaeriaceous 
Fungus, named it Trichosphaeria Sacchari (Ann. of Bot., vol. 
