sates 
Se 
SE 
1 Juxy, 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 87 
sur trois épreuves d'infection qui ont été tenteés le méme jour, un premier pied de 
canne a été coupé et examiné 2 mois aprés et un second deux mois plus tard, c’est 
i dire 4mois aprés l’infection; dans les deux cas, l’étendue et l’aspect de 14 lésion 
étaient sensiblement les mémes, 4 part une teinte un peu plus brunatre de la région 
infectée dans le second cas.” (Op. cit., p. 99.) Trans. 
Again, A. Howard, in recording the results of his inoculation experiments, 
evidently conducted with special precautions to ensure strict accuracy, and in which 
need-be punctures constituted the wounds made in the healthy tissue, does not inform 
us that the parasitic organism occurred more than half-an-inch from the point of 
infection. 
The observations of the writer with regard to the occurrence of this particular 
fungus in the canefields of the State have not been conducted far enough to admit of 
a definite conclusion being arrived at as to the part taken by it in effecting cane destruc- 
tion. ‘They, however, so far tend to support the conclusion that whenever it pervades 
an entire cane this is already practically dead, or is the victim of some obscure disease, 
robably of a purely physiological nature, brought about by influences whose nature 
fag yet to be ascertained. The very frequent germination of the spores within the 
superficial cells of the cut and often fissured ends of stubble, without detriment to the 
ratoon growth that subsequently develops, seems alone explicable on this hypothesis. 
Funeus No. 2—Colletotrichum faleatum, Went.* 
A further significant fact in connection with the cane destruction alluded to is of 
a nature comparable to that just narrated. It is the existence of another fungus of 
world-wide distribution—Colletotrichum falcatum, Went, in the canefields of Mackay 
and of the Burdekin, and probably in those of other districts also. For from both of 
these mentioned the fungus has been found in cane brought under my _ notice 
as illustrating a special diseased condition of a most pronounced type. To afford 
general insight into the appearances that characterise sugar-cane in which Cod/eto- 
trichum occurs, the following quotation may be made from an official report made in 
March, 1898, by Dr. A. G. Bourne, F.R.S., Professor of Biology at the Madras 
- Presidency College :—‘ Canes but slightly affected—i.e., only recently attacked—show 
one or more bright red spots in one or more internodes, and if these are followed up by 
longitudinal sections they appear as red streaks, which branch at the nodes. It is the 
fibro-vascular bundles aah become coloured. Such slight attacks usually occur 
somewhere about the middle of the length of the cane. Where the disease is more 
advanced the colouration extends also to the ground tissue, so that any section shows 
red patches. Subsequently the central portion of each red patch becomes opaque and - 
white, and acquires a texture like that of a ‘ woolly’ radish—the tissue is in fact dead. 
Where the disease is still further advanced, portions, first at the nodes and later else- 
where, become black, and at this stage or before, the leaves at the top wither, and the 
entire cane dies up. Some of the canes only were attacked when sufficiently young to 
give time for the disease to runits full course; others were attacked at later stages and 
are yielding a certain amount of juice. Wherever the fungus has been growing in 
the cane for a sufficient length of time, small black, minute, velvety spots are to 
be found among the sleeping roots, which look like warts on the nodes.” 
This particular sugar-cane fungus was first noticed as occurring in Java in 1893. 
In this year F. A. F. C. Went described it as existing in connection with a malady 
named “Rod Snot” (Mededeelingen van het Proefstation West, Java, 1893). More- 
over, it was, during the same year, pronounced by G. Massee as being the cause of a 
serious ‘ Root Disease’ of sugar-cane that had occurred in Barbados. “The fungus”’ 
(to use his own words) “under normal conditions, attacking the above-ground portions 
of the cane, the ‘rcot disease’ condition being a modification of the normal form, 
called into existence by the method of cane cultivation adopted.’—Kew Bulletin, 
December, 1893, page 347. 
In British-India already the literature relating to a particular sugar-cane disease 
occurring in the Madras, Bengal, and North-west provinces is quite extensive. 
Amongst contributors to it, in addition to Dr. H. G. Bourne, whose work is already 
alluded to, being Lieutenant A. T. Gage, 8. M. Hadi, C. A. Barber, C. Benson, Dr. 
George Wall, and others. A careful perusal of this literature renders it evident that 
it is almost invariably a disease associated with the fungus now under notice and 
oceurring in Java, Queensland, and the West Indies. 
The disease, however, except as described by Lieutenant Gage, “ A Note on the 
Diseases of Sugar-cane in Bengal,’ Calcutta, 1900, is invariably referred to by the 
above writers, and erroneously so, in our opinion, as being identical with that attended 
* The fungus of the so-called Root Disease of the West Indies and of the ‘Rod Snot” of 
the Java planter. hme ( 
