1120 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXVIII, No. 11 
United States, Arthur ( 1 , 2) secured infection on Lycopsis arvensis L. (Anchusa 
arvensis) with Puccinia dispersa from rye. A few pycnia developed in one in¬ 
stance and numerous pycnia and a few aecia in another. He states that— 
It is possible, yet scarcely probable, that the explanation (of this weak development of aecia) lies in the 
lessened vigor of the American rye rust, which is propagated by repeating spores alone, the aecial hosts 
being practically wanting in America. 
In Europe, the leaf rust of rye is characterized by several workers as having 
teliospores which develop and germinate during the same season. Eriksson (4) 
especially has emphasized this point and states that in Sweden the teliospores 
begin to germinate as soon as they mature, that is, about the middle of July, and 
cease germinating when kept out of doors during the winter. The aecia were 
produced from the beginning of August to the end of September. Although in 
Eriksson's experiments the teliospores did not germinate after overwintering 
in the open, he found they would remain dormant until spring if kept indoors. 
Most of the other European writers on rusts appear to agree with these state¬ 
ments of Eriksson. DeBary (3), however, who originally discovered the con¬ 
nection, states that the teliospores germinated after overwintering. Klebahn 
(6) questions whether this was out of doors, pointing out that DeBary does not 
state the manner in which they were overwintered. DeBary ( 3 ), however, 
does state that aecia are to be found throughout the year from spring to late 
summer and in mild winters even in January. 
GERMINATION OF THE TELIOSPORES 
During the winter of 1918-19, a number of collections of telia of the leaf rust 
of rye were wintered along with those of the leaf rust of wheat and were tested 
for germination in the spring of 1919. One collection of the leaf rust of rye 
germinated in April. Since, as stated above, the teliospores of the leaf rust of 
rye are generally believed to germinate only in the late summer and fall of the 
year in which they are formed, all the collections of telia of this rust, made in the 
spring and summer of 1919, were tested for germination beginning July 15, and 
at intervals of two to four weeks until April 7, 1920. 
Each collection was tied in a coarse cheesecloth bag and hung on the east side 
of a building about 2 feet from the ground All the material was brought into the 
greenhouse two days before testing and placed on moist sphagnum for that length 
of time. The test for germination was made by scraping some of the teliospores 
from the rye leaves and placing them in a hanging drop on the bottom of an 
inverted Syracuse watch glass. These drops were then examined after 12 hours. 
Twenty collections of teliospores obtained from the States of Indiana, Georgia, 
Delaware, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, 
Oregon, and California were thus wintered and tested. Of these, 15 showed 
germination at some time during the test. Germination first took place on 
August 19 in 2 collections, and between that date and November 25,10 additional 
collections showed germination. All these collections and 2 others continued, 
for the most part, to germinate during December. During January, 11 of the 14 
still showed some germination. In February there apparently was a sharp 
falling off in the number of collections showing germination, only six showing 
germination during that period. In March, another collection was added to 
the list for the first time. On April 7, when the material was last tested, five cul¬ 
tures still showed germination. One of these five was the collection which germi¬ 
nated on August 19 of the preceding summer. This culture showed germination 
on 9 consecutive occasions during the winter, another 10, a third 7, a fourth 6, 
and the other, which first showed germination in April, germinated twice. 
