New YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 221 
ond cutting. Owing to dry weather it had been making a very slow 
growth. Here and there through the field occasional stalks were 
dead or wilting. Sometimes, whole plants were dead. In other 
cases living and dead stalks were found in the same stool. 
In seeking the cause of the trouble our attention was first at- 
tracted by elliptical, sunken spots appearing on some, but not all, 
of the dead stems. In two instances, the top of the stalk was killed 
by a single large spot about two inches below the tip. While some 
of the dead stalks bore several spots there were usually only one 
to three on each stalk and they appeared too small to be responsible 
for the death of the stalks. Besides, similar spots were sometimes 
found in healthy stalks. It was plain that, in the majority of 
cases, the death of the stalks was due to something else than the 
spots. 
The spots were elliptical, sunken, five to six millimeters long, with 
sharply-defined outline; their color was usually gray sprinkled with 
specks of darker color. Under the microscope the dark-colored 
specks proved to be the acervuli of some Melanconiaceous fungus, 
apparently a species of Gloeosporium. The spores were hyaline, non- 
septate, about 12 x 4.5 4, rounded at both ends and frequently 
somewhat narrowed at the middle. However, it was found that on 
the older spots some of the acervuli were supplied with sete, also 
that dead stubs in the crowns of affected plants were thickly covered 
with a dark-colored fungus having similar spores and sete. Speci- 
mens of the fungus were sent to Prof. Bain who identified it as 
his Colletotrichum trifolu. 
Further study of the affected plants revealed the fact that the 
death of the stalks was usually due to a diseased condition of the 
crown which might be very properly designated black crown. Upon 
peeling the bark from the large branches of the crown the woody 
part was found conspicuously blackened below the point of attach- 
ment of the dead stalks. When there were living and dead stalks 
springing from the same crown the wood blackening occurred only 
in the portion bearing the diseased stalks. When all the stalks 
were dead the blackening extended all through the crown and even 
into the upper portion of the tap-root. Microscopic examination 
showed the blackening to be due to the presence of a compact black 
fungus mycelium closely interwoven with the wood fibers. 
Besides Colletoirichum trifolu, the diseased crowns commoniy 
bore two other species of fungi; viz., a Dendrodochium producing 
multitudes of hyaline, non-septate, elliptical, straight or slightly 
