PAPAVER
somniferum.
CULTIVATION
Diseases.
Dactylium.
60
Extracted from the Dictionary of
Sporotrichum.
Diseases of the Poppy Plant.
which forms the blue mouldiness on cheese. It is distinguished by its
necklaces of spores, rising from a less or more globular head, and support-
- e d b y e r e c t , s e p t a t e , m i c r o s c o p i c t h r e a d s .
"(m) Dactylium.—A genus of thread-moulds found on the decaying or
living tissues of plants and animals. The species are distinguished by
their erect, jointed, and branched hyaline threads, bearing at their tips
septate spores. D. roseum, the species found on the poppy, is thus de
scribed by the Rev. Mr. Berkeley :—" It consists of a creeping mycelium,
from which arise short erect threads, crowned above with a few obovate
uniseptate spores. The mass is first white, but at length acquires a pale
rose colour, by which it is readily distinguished. The plant grows very
abundantly on various objects, whether dead or living, and is sometimes
highly destructive to cucumber plants, forming broad patches on the leaves
and stems. It occurs also not unfrequently in closed cavities, as in nuts,
to which it must have made its way from without through the tissues. A
solution of bisulphide of soda,o r i n d e e d a n y t h i n g w h i c h c o n t a i n s s u l p h u r i c
acid, will facilitate the destruction of this mould when requisite." The
pale rose-coloured patches of this mould are very common on the poppy in
moist, warm weather, occurring alike on the leaves and stems, and in the
interior of the capsules, then densely webbing the seeds. It is very com--
mon in capsules which have been injured by grubs. In the opium go-
downs, indeed, as on opium everywhere, when exposed to a moist and high
temperature, it evidently finds a favourite nidus, covering the surface with
its rosy web, when left for any time undisturbed. Dr. Durant, the
present Principal Assistant in the Behar Agency however, informs me that
it does really no injury to the opium. His only fungoid dread is the black
-mould —Mucer mucedo — which will be subse q uently described.
"(n) Sporotrichum. —A genus of obscure thread-moulds, affecting decay
-ing vegetable substances. They have tufted, jointed, ascending threads,
with spores at first concealed, simple, and scattered. A species apparently
belonging to this genus is found on the roots of the poppy. It occurs in
oblong or roundish patches of a strawy colour, the threads forming a close
-ly woven web, and bearing numerous minute subglobose spores. Plants
with their roots affected by this mould have been sent me by the Sub-
Deputy Opium Agent of Chuprah. The plants had withered in the
ground ; the roots were covered with the above mould, and had assumed
quite a dry and woody texture. I suspect this mould had been the main
cause of the destruction of the plants.
Trichoderma.
Mucor.
(o) Trichoderma.—A genus found on decaying wood and other parts
of plants. It is characterised by a roundish peridium, composed of inter
-woven. branched, and jointed filaments, at length disappearing in the
centre ; spores minute and spread over the disc. T. viride is not at all un-
-frequent on the base of the stem and roots of the poppy, but generally con
-fined to diseased or injured parts. It forms roundish, intertangled tufts of
snowy-white threads, on which rest numerous globose spores of a dusky
-
green colour.
"(p) Mucor.—The typical genus of the mucorinous moulds, character
-ised by a globose sporangium, into which the tip of the stem often enters in
the guise of a clavate columella, and indefinite sporidia produced irregu-
-larly in the cavity : the spores are mostly elliptic (Berkeley) . . . .
M. mucedo is the blackish-coloured mould so frequent on the opium shells
during moist weather. It has a dense cobweb-like mycelium, consisting of
tubular, jointed, simple threads, which bear at their apex a roundish
membranous spore case, at first white, but which ultimately with the
spores assumes a brownish black colour. Dr. Durant, the Principal
Assistant in the Behai Agency, refers to it as the only serious cause of