it; 
STEM EELWORM. 
19 
T. devastatrix in its various conditions of male, female, and larvae in 
the stunted and deformed Bean plants. 
These specimens, which were all mature, were sent me by request 
of Mr. Eve, from the Tingrith Manor Farm, near Woburn, Bedford¬ 
shire, shortly after the 12th of August. On carefully examining the 
six plants sent me, I found one plant to be not as much as four inches 
high, the stem flattened and widened, and swelled at the base, where 
it was evidently broken off at ground-level. 
Two others of the plants were only about ten inches high. Of 
these one was fairly healthy in form, the other had eight side shoots 
from six inches length of main stem ; these so placed that the whole 
plant, with its shoots and pods, had a kind of oval fan-shape, as shown 
in the figure at the head of this paper. Some of the pods were 
straight and rightly shaped, but a large proportion of them were 
stunted and distorted, and some of them were scarcely as much as 
three-quarters of an inch in length. The lower part of the thickened 
stem was much curved, and in the case of another of the plants the 
stem was so much curved just at ground-level that (although it was 
altogether scarcely more than twelve inches high) about three inches 
of the length was nearly horizontal. Another of the plants sent me 
was also slightly swelled and deformed, and very much shortened in 
growth. 
The sixth plant was fairly healthy, and served as a kind of scale to 
give some idea of the amount of harm that had happened to the 
injured specimens ; in this case the stem was over three feet and 
a half in length. 
On forwarding some of the Bean plants to Dr. Ritzema Bos, he 
made examination and found the male, which possesses a bursa. 
Therefore, as Dr. R. Bos wrote, “the Eelworm which infests the 
Beans is a Tylenchus"; and further, “ the dimensions of the various 
parts of the body, the relation between the length and the breadth, 
and the absolute length of the Eelworms, are such that I have no 
doubt at all that the Eelworm which infests the Beans is (just as you 
supposed) Tylenchus devastatrix .”—J. R. B. 
This Stem Eelworm (the Tylenchus devastatrix scientifically) is a 
minute transparent-white threadworm, at its full growth scarcely 
more than l-25th of an inch in length, and its greatest breadth may 
be said in a general way to be l-30tli of its length. The full micro¬ 
scopic details are given under “ Tulip-root,” together with a full-page 
plate of the male and female Eelworm, after drawings by Dr. Ritzema 
Bos, Professor at the Royal Agricultural College, Wageningen, Holland ; 
but the above general statement of measurement is also desirable to 
m notice, because an entirely different kind of small white worm, often to 
be found near the roots of plants, which, though very minute, are yet 
c 2 
