July 6, 1893, ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
11 
permanent influences for good. The old City has come out of itself, but 
reaction is inevitable, and it may be hoped that it will not be a complete 
return to the status quo. Flower-furnished windows are still the excep¬ 
tion in our huge towns, and a great work must be accomplished before 
the masses are educated up to the sense of beauty and refinement which 
finds expression in bright and fragrant blossoms. They bring refresh¬ 
ment to the heart and contentment to the mind, giving new pleasures to 
those who, if past the first “ lexicon of youth,” are not so in the sense 
of being on the threshold of gardening life, but have the bright rubicon 
of manhood before them, opening up fresh fields of thought and 
happiness, even though the sands of their material existence be running 
down. 
Something, too, may be hoped for from the love that those who have 
to-day, with every token of a nation’s affection and esteem, entered upon 
a new and momentous epoch in their lives, are known to bear for 
flowers. At Sandringham, where the Royal honeymoon is to be spent, 
few of the flowers so admirably cultivated by Mr, McKellar are more 
extensively grown than Tea Roses, and for these chaste and delicious 
blossoms the bridegroom is reputed to have a special regard. But both 
he and his Consort, possessing in a rare degree the attributes to which 
leaves below are simply blotched (a), and one leaf (J) is perfectly clean. 
The attack looks like frost-bite, or blackening by an overdose of an 
insecticide or fungicide. If one of the young leaves be examined on 
the under side a number of small dots will be seen. These app)ear 
concave and whitish, but they are really convex and yellow, with a 
minute black central spot or spots. The dots are just visible to the 
unaided eye, as shown at B—a small leaf, natural size, blackened and 
destroyed. There is nothing whatever on the upper surface of the leaf 
but dead hairs as outgrowths. Taking a still smaller leaf, and examining 
it by an ordinary pocket lens, 1 find the yellow pustules spread over 
the whole of the under side, and they still appear concave, not unlike 
the “ cups ” of an Jilcidium, the whole tissue of the leaf (C) being 
destroyed down to the point c, that part being black ; but below c the 
footstalk is perfectly healthy. One noticeable feature is, the dots or 
spots are not present on the footstalk nor on the midribs and veins of 
the leaf. This is a remarkable characteristic of mites—they never, or 
very rarely, produce galls from those parts. By mites, I mean those of 
the sub-family Phytoptidae (four-legged Phytoptus), 
If a minute portion of an undeveloped leaf be examined by a lens, 
we find the pustules are a beautiful transparent yellow colour, and 
Fig. 2.—black currant SHOOTS DISEASED. 
flowers specially appeal, are broad and catholic in their tastes, and the 
freedom with which they may be trusted to utilise flowers can hardly 
fail to popularise the garden and widen its influences for good. A great 
step will have been gained if the ever-widening eddies thus set in 
motion carry the germs of flower-love into new waters, bringing bright¬ 
ness and delight to those for whom at present the Roses bloom not. 
BLACK CURRANT SHOOTS DISEASED. 
A DISEASE has appeared in recent years on the tips of the shoots of 
Vines, Figs, Tomatoes, and other plants grown under glass. It first 
contracts the" margin of the leaves and causes them to enrol or enclose 
(in Vines it is the reverse— i.e., invert), and the affected growth becomes 
of a dirty dark brown or black, the leaves dying. The disease in Figs, 
Vines, and Tomatoes is certainly contagious, but there is no trace 
whatever of fungal attack, and though the appearance is that of red 
spider attacks with the leaf tissues blackened, there is no evidence of 
animal parasites. I am persuaded, however, that it is due to mites, 
which have the property of producing chemical changes, and that 
always takes the primordial colour of the host, as seen in the young 
growth before chlorophyll is formed. 
But we are now concerned with the blackened condition of Black 
Currant shoots submitted by Mr. F. Q, Lane. The tips of the shoots are 
hardened in tissue, dirty brown or black, as shown at A, while the 
instead of being concave they are convex, and not unlike the fruits of 
Nectria ditissima (the Apple and Pear canker fungus) in form, or an Oak 
blister-gall, with a conspicuous black centre, composed of one or more 
irregular dots. Transparent yellow pustules may be discerned, and springing 
from the surface of the leaf (under side) between the blisters are some 
transparent white hairs. These are Erineum, and no creature can 
produce them but mites, nor any chemical known to science. Subjecting 
a still minuter portion of a young infested leaf to a higher power of 
the microscope we get to see that the blisters have been raised from 
the cells of the leaf and immediately around the black central dot or 
dots, which are raised with the blisters. Three are shown in D, at d, 
and the hairs, e, are seen to be forked, and that division is produced 
by budding, as represented by the little knobs along them, here and 
there. 
Now that before mentioned is all there is to see on the leaves and 
shoots. The black spots or dots in the centre of the transparent yellow 
blister are the oxidised excreta of the mite, and the blister is caused by 
the chemical ferment set up in the plant tissues or cells by the liquid 
portion or poison absorbed, and corresponds to those raised by ants on 
the human skin. The abnormal growth of the hairs is due to endeavour 
on the part of the plant to throw off the poison, and this only provides 
pasturage for the mites, for they browse on those, and when they defo¬ 
liate the crop of Erineum the mites must do or die. I am aware that 
the mites are said to “ stray about upon the leaves and the shoots, and 
make their peculiar gold-coloured galls [which are shown in D] upon the 
