OF THE MINUTE FUNGI OF ESSEX. 31
Uredo and occasionally very compact. The microscope at once
determines whether a parasite is a Puccinia or Uredo. It is
useless attempting to enumerate all the plants on which Puccinia
may be found, but probably the wood anemone, and almost any
Composite plant, will furnish specimens to begin with. The leaves
should be collected and dried between blotting paper, or the leaves
of an old book, and when dry glued down upon white paper, with
the affected side uppermost. The name, date, and locality should
be attached, as also the name of the plant on which it was found.
The genus Triphragmium in which the spores are three-celled
will only be found in the autumn, on the under side of the leaves of
the meadow-sweet.
Common enough will be the illustrations of the genus Aregma
or Phragmidium, on rose leaves, brambles, and tormentil. The
tufts of spores are black, and the first species may be found on any
bramble bush. The spores are splendid objects, as they are so
large, and have numerous septa. Their own Uredo-form will be
found either with the perfect spores or preceding them.
It is scarcely necessary to refer to other genera or divisions, as
these will be found illustrated in "Rust, Smut, Mildew, and Mould,"
and all particulars given whereby the student will soon be able to
name the genus of any form he may meet with, whilst the particular
species may be determined twelve months afterwards, if the speci-
men is preserved and mounted with the necessary information
attached.
The smuts and bunt, with their sooty spores, found on grasses
and Carices as well as on Polygonum and some other plants, are
kindred in some respects to the foregoing, but it is hardly advisable
to mix them up together, which would most likely result from any
effort to describe them here. These must therefore be left to indi-
vidual research or a future opportunity.
Returning to the Uredines, we must take leave to mention the
latest and most complete book which has been published in this
country on the subject. It is "A Monograph of the British Ure-
dinae and Ustilaginae," by Charles B. Plowright. A big book, with
illustrations, which are good, and a cover which is beastly, and all
for 7s. 6d., with descriptions of the British species. We do not pre-
tend to agree with all that the book contains, or to be a convert to
its theories, but with the descriptions of the species, and indeed all,
except the heteroecesmal hallucination, we are in general accord.