290 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. VII, No. 6 
plant itself than to lack of favorable conditions for fungus attack. Plants 
of known susceptibility were at all times grown as controls in the infec¬ 
tion experiments and served as a good basis for such conclusions. 
HISTORICAL REVIEW 
Berkeley and Broome (2, p. 461) in 1850 first described the fungus now 
known as T. basicola. These authors found it at the base of stems of 
Pisum sativum and NemophUa auriculata . The fungus was apparently 
not again noted until 1876, when Zopf (23) reported it from Ger¬ 
many on Senecio elegans and Sorokin (20) from Russia on horse¬ 
radish (1 Cochlearia armoracia ). Massee (10) described a new fungus in 
1884 which he found on decaying leaves of Blysmus compressus and named 
it Milowia nivea. This fungus he considers in a later paper (11) as having 
been T. basicola. Prom descriptions and drawings of this earlier de¬ 
scribed form, however, it may be seen that there is some room for doubt 
as to the identity of these two forms. 
In 1891 Zopf (24) again published upon the occurrence of Thielavia 
basicola and noted that it was especially common on leguminous plants, 
adding the following new hosts: Lupinus angustifolius, L. albus , L. 
thermis , L. luteus , Trigonella coerulea y and Onobrychis cristargalli. In the 
same year Thaxter (22) made the first report of the occurrence of T. 
basicola in America, finding it on the violet. Sorauer (19) in 1895 
reported the fungus as causing a disease of the roots of the cyclamen. 
Peglion (13), working in Italy, in 1897 was first to record the parasitism 
of T. basicola on Nicotiana tabacum . Killebrew (8, p. 162), however, 
as early as 1884, described the symptoms of a root disease of tobacco in 
Pennsylvania, which was undoubtedly due to T. basicola 9 though no 
causal organism was named in the description. Selby (15, p. 228) has 
noted T. basicola as occurring upon the roots of Begonia rubra , following 
the nematode disease, and later found it causing a rootrot of Catalpa 
speciosa (17, p. 384, 447). Smith (18, p. 35-38) in 1899 added two new 
hosts, Gossypium herbaceum and Vigna sinensis. Van Hook (16, p. 96) 
was first to note T. basicola upon Panax (Aralia) quinquefolium. Ader- 
hold (1) in 1905 found T. basicola on begonia and carried on infection 
experiments with pure cultures of the organism. He obtained slight 
infections on Scorzonera hispanica, Daucos carota f Apium graveolens, and 
Beta vulgaris and better development on Lupinus angustifolius and 
Phaseolus vulgaris. He concluded from his experiments that T. basicola 
was only a weak parasite. 
Kirchner (9) includes two previously unreported species as hosts, 
Phaseolus multiflorus and Nicotiana rustica. Since no reference to per¬ 
sonal observation or infection experiments could be found, it is pre¬ 
sumable that these are not authentic host plants, especially in view of 
the facts noted later. 
