Corticiums Causing Pellicularia Disease of the Coffee Plant, Hypochnose of Pomaceous Fruits, and Rhizoctonia Disease

Last year Professor F. L. Stevens sent to the author specimens of coffee branches collected at Mayaguez, Porto Rico, August, 1915, which were infested with the Pellicularia fungus, and requested that study be made to determine whether this fungus is not one of the Thelephoraceae. In compliance with this request, preparations were made from the material, which finally afforded simple basidia bearing hyaline, even spores 12X4 , flattened on one side. This fungus is a Corticium with habit of growth and structure greatly resembling the Hypochnus ochroleucus Noack which Dr. Stevens studied in 1907. Upon looking up the literature of the Pellicularia fungus complications developed as follows: 1. Pellicularia koleroga was published by M. C. Cooke, in 1876, as a hyphomycete having solitary, globose, echinulate spores situated here and there along the sides of the hyphae. In the article in Popular Science Review 15: 164165. 1876, Cooke expresses doubt as to whether the globose bodies are spores, because they do not become detached from the hyphae, and believes that their true nature will have to be decided by germination experiments. The material upon which Cooke based his species was collected at Mysore, India. 2. Dr. A. Ernst studied diseases of coffee in Venezuela and published a paper in 1878, entitled "Estudios sobre las Deformaciones, Enfermedades y Enemigos del Arbol de Cafe in Venezuela," pp. 1-24. Caracas. One of the diseases consid-