Bot. [Origin unknown.]
† 1. The Puff ball (Lycoperdon bovista). Now dial.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XVI. xl. I. 490. Tinder, made … of bunts and withered leaues.
1609. C. Butler, Fem. Mon., VII. (1623), Q iij. Smother them with Brimstone or Bunt, as you kill Bees.
1878. Britten & Holland, Plant-n., Bunt, Lycoperdon Bovista, Nhamp.
2. A parasitic fungoid, Tilletia caries, which attacks wheat, filling the grain with black fetid powder; also the disease caused by it.
1797. Ann. Reg., 409/2. Wheat … very much injured by smut-balls or bunts.
1847. Berkeley, Jrnl. Horticult. Soc. London, II. 108. The principal diseases of plants, such as rust, bunt, mildew, etc., are of vegetable origin.
1865. Carter’s Gard. & Farmer’s Vade-M., II. 124. Bunt … results in a swollen discoloured seed…. On the kernel being broken, it is found to be full of a black stinking powder.
1882. A. Carey, Princ. Agricult., xix. 164. Bunt, or Smut-ball, the most formidable disease, perhaps, to which wheat is subject.
