10 
Bois chandelle (Dracoena angustifolia) from castings. 7 
feet high with 2 small branches giving insufficient shade, 4 
roots at right angles to each other 7 feet long but provided 
with very few rootlets. 
2. Pignon d’Inde (Jatropha curcas) from cuttings. 7\ feat 
high with 3 branches, 3 big roots sharply tapering with fine 
extremities and 5 very small roots. 
3. Gliricidia maculata from cuttings. 12 feet high with 12 
branches, tap root 3 feet long together with 14 roots placed 
lit e the tubers of a cassava plant, the longest measuring 5 feet 
and the shortest 1 foot. This powerful root system accounts 
for the rapidity of growth of this plant and one may hope that 
the deep roots deprived of a network of rootlets will not inter¬ 
fere too much with the roots of vanilla. 
4. Cashew nut (Anacardium occidentale) from seeds. 
5 feet high with 3 branches, 1 slender tap root and a 
few rootlets. The root system is weak as compared with that 
of the other plants. 
Under the action of persistent rains the vanilla disease 
which is always found attacking a few scattered vines on all 
estates assumed this year a virulent form on several estates 
causing whole plantations to be destroyed in a few months. 
This disease which was recorded in Seychelles and in many 
other parts of the world in or about 1887 has been described at 
Kew in 1892 by Massee to whom specimens from Seychelles 
were on several occasions forwarded. It is due to a fungus 
of the Peronospora family and it is the first time since 1901 
that it has caused wholesale destruction on several plantations. 
The vines apparently healthy suddenly take a whitish yellow 
colour, the leaves become Happy and the stems grooved like old 
vines in the last stages of their existence. The roots and the 
tendrils gradually die off from their extremities and the whole 
plant looks as if the supply of water to the leaves had been 
suddenly cut off. Galbraith, a successful vanilla planter in 
the Colony in the nineties published in 1898 under the aus¬ 
pices of the United States Department of Agriculture, a remark¬ 
able pamphlet on the culture of vanilla in Seychelles. This 
disease is mentioned several times as being of great as well as 
of sudden destructiveness and difficult to control, but 
no description of it is given. Since that time vanilla culture 
in Seychelles has progressed satisfactorily and planters although 
fully aware of the presence of the disease on a few vines here 
and there, take no notice of it. This is sufficfent proof that 
general outbreaks of the disease are of seldom occurrence and 
that the malady is far from being generally very destructive. 
I do not think that it has become more destructive than formerly. 
The fungus, according to the description by Massee, lives 
on the leaves and does all the mischief, but it does not reproduce 
itself there. It takes another form on dying and dead leaves 
ami this new form remains quiescent for a long time doing no 
mischief whatever. Eventually a third form is produced on the 
dead leaves, probably under some climatic influence such as 
persistent wet weather, and it is this third or calospora form 
which reproduces the first or Hainsea form which infects living 
tissues. On the estates which I visited there was no difficulty 
in spotting the Hainsea form on the flappy leaves but it is not 
on all diseased plants. The necessity for the fungus of acquir¬ 
ing several stages in transmitting the disease is evidently shown 
by the slow progress of the malady under normal conditions. 
1 have even seen vines which looked on the verge of destruction 
recover when transplanted on a new plot tree from diseased 
germs. For This reason experiments have been started to 
follow and study the transmission of the disease to healthy vines 
and to suggest remedies. Pending a more complete knowledge 
of the ways of transmission, it would be wise to destroy diseased 
vanilla vines on all estates as also the dead leaves and especially 
to avoid taking cuttings from old diseased plantations for 
restocking estates. Other noxious causes have been indicated 
such as the shade of Hevea rubber &c., but this tree has been 
used as shade for 5 or 6 years already and it is only this year 
that it has been mentioned as hurtful. New specimens of 
diseased vanilla has been forwarded to Mr Petch of Ceylon with 
a view to ascertaining whether besides the ancient fungus no 
new organism is the adjuvant cause of the disease at present 
prevailing. 
