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WEEDING a vegetable bed before building tonight's bonfire, I notice the fleecy backs of Coltsfoot leaves are dotted with bright orange spots. Looking at these through a low power microscope opens up an alien landscape. On this scale the down on the back of the leaf looks like the kapok stuffing of a mattress. Some of the spots look like tangled orange wool, others are warty. A few have pin-like filaments, each with a glistening spore capsule, like a bright orange Christmas light, at the tip.
'Any one may make himself acquainted with the genus Coleosporium with but little trouble, which the acquisition will more than compensate. A summer stroll into any locality in which the common coltsfoot can be found, will be certain to prove sufficient. Let the spot selected be any station on the North Kent Railway, for those who reside in town, or even a trip The book's illustrations are by J. E. Sowerby.
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According to a Victorian book with the wonderful title Rust, Smut, Mildew and Mould, an introduction to the study of Microscopic Fungi, this is Coltsfoot Rust Fungus, Coleosporium tussilaginis. Modern field guides are short and to the point, but I like the way the Victorian equivalent rambles along and paints a picture before getting down to the description;
to the Crystal Palace and a stroll in the grounds, and when the well-known leaves of the coltsfoot are descried, the under surface of the first leaf will doubtless give proof of the presence of the fungus in question, by the orange spores amongst its dense woolly hairs.'