1 Drc., 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 459 
closed above by the imbricate swollen sepals, and an external fleshy bract ; and 
containing the already dried-up essential organs of the flower, comprising the 
three stamens with their filaments that arise from-a level some distance up the 
wall of the cavity, and the compound thread-like style springing from the 
centre of its base. Immediately below this cavity is the so-called ovary of the 
fruit, in connection with which may be remarked a broad central fleshy axis (€), to 
lateral extensions of which—or placenta—are attached undeveloped ovules that 
occupy special elongated seed-cavities (¢)—or locules—that extend on each side 
of this placental axis, and between it and the outer wall of the fruitlet. The 
appearances alluded to, under the circumstances mentioned, presented by a 
diseased fruitlet are as follow (vide Plate LXX., Figs. A 2, 3, 4) :—Areas of 
dark-brown—apparently rotten—tissues occur in the solid parts below the 
cavity or chamber, being always more pronounced in the central or axial portion, 
and these are found extending more or less towards the base of the fruitlet. If 
the malady has but recently commenced in the fruitlet, or has been arrested in 
its development, only a single small spot (or perhaps two) of discoloured tissue 
is observable. This (b) invariably occurs immediately beneath one or other of the 
three small depressions surrounding the base of the style in the floor or base 
of the outer fruitlet cavity, and that probably originally served the purpose of 
nectaries in the pineapple flower; or again, less frequently, along the course 
of a line of tissue, immediately continuous below with the base of the style. 
As the disease progresses, the whole of the abovementioned placental axis, or 
“core,” becomes gradually involved in decay,* the brown discolouration 
even extending often to the outer walls of the fruitlet, and involving alike 
placenta and ovules. Moreover, as the dark-brown discolouration develops, 
the seed-cayities or locules of the ovaries become filled with a delicate white 
mould that is seen to have sprung from the decayed tissue that now forms—in 
part, at least—their walls. ; : 
In affected pineapples, fruitlets exhibiting the symptoms described vary 
greatly in number; moreover, in the same fruit the individual fruitlets 
implicated by the disease manifest it in different degrees of development at one 
and the same time, 
Saoorn-Lear.—The Smooth-Leaved Pineapple, otherwise known as the 
Cayenne variety, is less commonly affected by a “core-rot” disease than is 
the foregoing kind. It may be added also that in so much, however, as the 
symptoms attending its presence differ somewhat from those by which the 
affection in the Prickly Queen is characterised, the absolute identity of the two 
forms, though presumed, cannotas yet be definitely affirmed. These symptoms 
are as follow (vide Plates LXIX , UXVIIL.,B, and LXX., B):— 
External.—The individual sections of the surface of the fruit, or fruitlets, 
develop a dark coffee-brown colour denotive of decay—an alteration that seems 
to commence (except when the result of an extension of disease from a 
neighbouring individual), from external symptoms, at the central portion 
of the fruitlet and to proceed towards its outer margin. Associated with the 
pronounced change of colour, there is a more or less conspicuous shrinkage, as 
decay proceeds. ‘The bracts also are involved in these changes. When, as 
often happens, several contiguous fruitlets become so affected, the pineapple 
may present large conspicuous brown patches that may connect with one 
another all around it, so that a large portion of it may become involved. At 
first the portion of the fruit that is so conditioned preserves its regular contour, 
but during the progress of the disease, as shrinkage superyenes, deep fissures 
may arise amid the sections, and occasionally even two or three affected fruitlets 
may be partly sunken in the more or less extensive pits that thus arise. 
The affected fruitlets at first exhibit no outward indication of any fungus 
* Hence the appellation ‘‘core-rot” bestowed by the writer on this particular disease. 
Gl 
