FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
4 7 
of peach trees without cutting or injuring 
it in any way. Where the bark was 
young and green, gumming took place, 
while in cases where the bark was thicker 
and harder, no gumming was seen. 
Another interesting discovery was 
made while working with this fungus. It 
was found as stated before, that this fun¬ 
gus could also cause stem end decay of 
being inserted into the bark of healthy 
orange and peach trees will cause copious 
gumming; and that the same fungus 
when placed on oranges is able to cause 
a form of decay resembling stem-end rot.. 
CONTROL. 
The line of treatment for gummosis 
at once suggested by this discovery is to 
Table III. 
GUMMOSIS FUNGUS INFECTION 
ON ORANGES. 
Total 
Stem End Decay After 
Experiment No. 
15 Days. 
18 Days. 
25 Days. 
Per Cent. 
Per Cent. 
Per Cent- 
I. 
Soaked in water with fungus 24 hours. 
.00 
15 
50 
o 
. 
Soaked in water without fungus 24 hours. 
.00 
.00 
.00 
3 - 
Fungus filaments put on stem end. 
.00 
60 
80 
4 - 
Fungus filaments put on clipper cuts. 
100 
100 
100 
5 - 
Check. No fungus put on stem end. 
.00 
.00 
.00 
fruits. The decav is so similar to the true 
J 
stem-end rot decay, that even an expert 
could not tell it at its early stages. As 
the decay from the gummosis fungus pro¬ 
ceeds, however, the fruit becomes light in 
weight, with black streaks and is not so 
soft and mushy as in the other decay. 
Table III. shows the results of experi¬ 
ments with the gummosis fungus. 
These results seem to show that sound 
oranges are not so readily attacked by the 
Diplodia fungus as by the true stem-end 
rot fungus, but that injured oranges are 
just as readily attacked and more quickly 
destroyed. I do not think this fungus 
could enter a sound orange while still on 
the tree. 
The facts brought out in relation to 
gummosis are that there is a species of 
fungus connected with it; that this fun¬ 
gus can be grown on pure culture and on 
get rid of the organism in the infected 
tissue. If the disease has progressed until 
a good portion of the bark around a tree 
is involved, it might as well be cut out 
and burned. If it is not far advanced r 
the tree or limb affected can probably be 
saved by the following treatment. The 
finding of this fungus growing in the dis¬ 
eased places would indicate that the 
severe cutting away of all diseased tissue 
should be employed in order to get rid 
entirely of this fungus. Some growers- 
have been using with apparent success the 
method of cutting away quite severely, 
and where there are decayed places cut¬ 
ting these out further with a sharp knife 
or chisel. These cut surfaces are then dis¬ 
infected, and the whole surface covered 
with a kind of grafting wax. A very 
good wax for this purpose, which has 
been used with good success by Mr. Hart 
