Muscardine

Muscardine, or SILKWORM ROT (Botrytis Bassiana, so called from the Italian physician Bassi, who first proved its true nature in 1836), is a mould doubtless belonging to the Discomycetes (since its congener B. cinerea has been shown to be the spore-bearing phase of Peziza Fucheliana). It was first observed on the silkworm in Piedmont and France in the later part of the 18th century, and was frequently epidemic during the first half of the 19th, but has since been practically stamped out. De Bary has shown that it occurs not unfrequently upon a variety of insects.