Another Apparently New Entomogenous 
Fungus from the Hammock 
E. W. Berger, Entomologist, State Plant Board, Gainesville 
The subject of this paper as it was orig¬ 
inally handed to the secretary, read as 
follows: “Another Apparently New En¬ 
tomogenous Fungus from the Ham¬ 
mock.” However, as I plan, in part at 
least, to give again my discussion on 
“New Strains of Entomogenous Fungi,” 
presented before the Citrus Seminar at 
the University last October, I will now 
add that subject to the one printed in the 
program and discuss it first, after making 
a few brief general statements. 
For the benefit of any who are not fa¬ 
miliar with the subject of diseases that de¬ 
stroy insects, I should explain that very 
many insects are destroyed annually by 
fungus parasites peculiar to them. It is 
a remarkable fact, furthermore, that the 
diseases of insects consist mostly of fungi, 
although there are a few bacterial dis¬ 
eases known. Useful as well as injurious 
insects are destroyed (the honey bee 
among the useful), but the importance of 
the subject to the citrus grower and hor¬ 
ticulturist in general, lies in the fact that 
many injurious insects are greatly reduced 
and often controlled by their diseases. 
This is particularly true of white flies and 
scale insects often found infesting citrus 
trees. I sometimes doubt whether there 
would be such an extensive citrus industry 
in Florida today if it had not been for the 
assistance of the fungus parasites of 
scale insects and later of white flies. Some 
of you may recall my stating some years 
ago that, back in the 3o’s, when scale in¬ 
sects were first discovered in the citrus 
plantings at Mandarin and later at St. 
Augustine, these insects nearly killed the 
trees until probably the White-Headed 
Scale-Fungus (Ophionectria coccicola)*, 
if not other fungi also, controlled the 
scales and the trees began to recover and 
produce fruit. This happened after the 
growers had failed to control the scale by 
artificial means. 
I may further explain, that for the past 
six years the Entomological Department 
of the State Plant Board has been arti¬ 
ficially growing the Red Whitefly-Fun- 
gus and the Yellow Whitefly-Fungus, 
and more recently several others, in the 
laboratory and furnishing them to grow¬ 
ers at 75 cents per culture. A rather com¬ 
prehensive account of the entomogenous 
fungi, known at the time the paper was 
published, can be found in Vol. V, No. 3, 
^Identity of fungus surmised from Fig. 2, 
Plate II. Insects affecting the Orange, 1885.— 
Hubbard. 
68 
