BLIGHT, a diseased state of the cultivated grasses, especially of the cerealia. The term has been very vaguely and variously used, having, in fact, been applied to almost every disease of plants caused by the condition of the atmosphere, or of the soil, the attacks of insects, parasitic fungi, etc. It is frequently limited to the disease in wheat and other grains, which is also called SMUT-BALLS, BUNT, PEPPER BRAND, Or STINKING BUST, in which, while the grain retains its usual form and appearance, the interior of it is filled with a powder of a very fetid odor, consisting of balls so minute that it is calcu lated that four millions of them may exist m a single grain. These are a parasitic fun gus, credo caries (U. fatida of some botanists). Sec SMUT.—The name B. has been fre quently applied to diseases which seem to be caused by errors in the manuring of land, by which crops are often seriously injured. Unhealthy plants are most liable to be attacked by parasitic fungi, and by aphides and other insects, to which the origin of the evil has often been, in all probability, erroneously ascribed. Mr. Berkeley, a high
authority on such subjects, also states that " there is a kind of P. sometimes very preva lent, which has been referred to fungi, but which is, in fact, nothing more than an excessive development of the epidermal cells, which are no longer kept within bounds by the real cuticle," but become "elongated and frequently branched in various ways, so as to form spongy or mealy patches, which are sometimes in such abundance as from their bright color or peculiar aspect to attract general notice." Ile adds that this is most common on woody plants, as vines and hawthorns, but that something analogous is to be seen on a few herbaceous species, " a mere hypertrophy of the epidermal cells, or, indeed, mere fascicles of pubescence." This kind of B., however, does compara tively little injury.