86 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 Jury, 1901. 
in turn referred it to the celebrated British fungus-specialist, Dr. M. C. Cooke. Thig 
the latter described in Grevillea (op. cit. xix., p. 45) as Strumella sacchari (vid. F. WM, 
aleys “ Contributions to the Queensland Flora, *’ Oct. 1890, p. 7, and do., March, 
1891, p. 36]. 
As Dr. N. A. Cobb afterwards remarked :—‘ This fungus is well known. (iy 
Australia) to all canegrowers, being one of the most striking fungi that attack thei: 
crop. It occurs in the stalk and leaf after they are dead, or nearly so, in the form of 
conspicuous black eruptions which in damp weather, especially if 1t succeeds a periog — 
of dryness, exude a black, inky thread. When the eruptions are numerous these 
threads give the cane the appearance of having made a growth of kinky, coarse, jet 
black hair.” [Diseases of the Sugar Cane, 1893, p. 23.] This fungus that has been 
named by the able plant pathologist of New South Wales referred to, “ Cane Spume,”’ 
need not be further described, although it may be added that the black threads are 
composed of myriads of spores, each about one two-thousandth of an inch in length, — 
held together by a glutinous substance. 
Since 1890, and as the outcome of some attention to the mode of development of 
this familiar fungus, it has become evident to the writer that, as already affirmed by 
the Kew authorities in March, 1894, it is identical with one that G. Massee, Principa] 
Assistant, Herbarium, Royal Gardens, Kew, has named the Melanconium stage of 
Trichospharia sacchari, has shown to be associated with the West Indian cane 
disease that since 1892 has proved so destructive in Barbados; and has concluded ig 
“a true parasite in the sense of destroying perfectly healthy, living tissues.” He also 
described it as being a fungus “that can effect un entrance into healthy canes quite 
independently of the agency” of any boring insect. [Vid. G. Massee, Annals of 
Botany, vii. p. 350, 1893. ] 
It is also evidently identical with the fungus derived from diseased Mauritius 
cane that MM. Prillieux and Delacroix regard as possibly being a dangerous parasite 
belonging to the genus Coniothyriwm, cone ding their memoir referred to, in so far ag 
it relates to the fungus itself, with these words: ‘‘ De tout ce que nous avons dit, il 
semble résulter que le Coniothyrium melasporum peut étre pour la canne & sucre un 
arasite dangereux. Ce parasite s‘introduit par les plaies, et il est bien évident que 
er cannes peuvent étre infectés dés la plantation si elles ont été bouturées sur des 
pieds infectées préalablement.” [Bulletin de la Société Mycologique de France, xi, 
1895, separ. p. 11.] (Zrans . .) In addition to the locality mentioned, these French 
savants report the occurrence of this cane fungus in Tonkin and Martinique; and 
despite Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer’s pronouncement to the contrary, Professor Went’s 
Melanconium sacchari from West Java is identical, too, with the West Indian and 
Australian parasite. 
The relation between this fungus and the sugar-cane, in connection with which it 
exists, has been variously interpreted. Thus Massee concludes that the spores having 
germinated on the remains of dead leaf bases, scars formed by broken lateral branches, 
roots, &c.. or in the wounds inflicted by boring insects, originate a general disease. 
MM. Prillieux and Delacroix and A. Howard (Mycologist to the Imperial Department 
of Agriculture for the West Indies) the most recent investigator of West Indian 
Sugar-cane Diseases (Annals of Botany, x1v., No. tv1., December, 190':) appear to 
be of the same opinion. Dr. N. A. Cobb, referring evidently to observations made in 
the Lower Clarence River district of New South Wales, states that this may not be 
always the case. ‘ Sometimes (he writes) only a limited portion of the cane shows 
these appearances (i.e., the characteristic features of the disease), and this is usually 
the case when the fungus enters through some very small injury to the rind; quite as 
often, however, the whole cane is attacked, and dies down to the ground.” 
Went, the great investigator of the cane diseases of the Java plantations, on the 
other hand, concludes that the fungus of that country, that in other respects agrees 
with that of the West Indies, Australia, and Mauritius, is always a saprophyte, and 
lives only on canes that are already dead, or, if introduced by inoculation into a 
healthy cane, only develops in cells that have died as the result of the injury. 
Boname also has stated in Mauritius 1 e/anconiwm sacchari only attacks dead canes. 
It may further be remarked that it would appear that in all the cases where the 
relation between this wound parasite and healthy growing cane has been demonstrated, 
by experiments of inoculation, in which pre-cultivation of the fungus has been ~ 
employed, only quite local disease has been produced even when slits and notches, as 
in the case of some of Massce’s experiments, were made for the purpose of receiving 
the living spores. MM. Prillieux and Delacroix give interesting testimony on this 
point, stating as follows concerning their “essais d’infection.”—* La lésion ne 
s’étendait que de 3 cent. metres environ au-deli de la plaie qui, disposée selon la 
longueur de la tige, n’a jamais dépassé 2 ou 3 millimetres. I] est juste dajonter que 
