Sir,—In reply to your communication of November 24,1 I have the honour to inform you that the samples of wheat sent by Mr.
B. Goddard, of Taripta,2 are much beset with patches of the ordinary Puccinia rust; but as the grain has advanced almost to maturity, the crop will likely be safe through early harvesting. Irrespective of the rust spots on the wheat submitted, occur also minute masses of black fungus growth, seemingly the early stage of a chaetomium; but this cannot be the "blight" to which Mr. Goddard refers, as the attack from the fungus just mentioned is too insignificant to be extensively hurtful. Possibly, however, the extreme changes in the weather about a week ago may have been locally so severe on crops as to affect injuriously the wheat there also constitutionally; and this would be more readily visible on a whole cereal field than on a sample such as was rendered available for examination here, the straw of which, indeed, looks very light coloured.
I am &c
FERD. VON MUELLER
Melbourne, Nov. 29.
Chaetomium
Puccinia
Please cite as “FVM-87-11-29,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on