Il6 DIVISION I. GENERAL MORPHOLOGY. 



especially described them in 1794 in Peziza, Helvetia, Morchella, Ascobolus, Sphaeria,and 

 Geoglossum in his epoch-making attempt at a classification of the mushrooms in 

 Romer's Neues .Magazin f. Bot., I, p. 62. Persoon's Icon, et descr. Fungorum, I 

 (1798), pp. 6, 25, should also be consulted ; also J. Hedwig, Theor. generat. et fructif. 

 plant. Cryptog., Ed. 2 (1798), and from among later writers Ditmar in Sturm's Deutschl. 

 Fl. Ill, i, &c. Many of the accounts of these older authors are reproduced in 

 Nees v. Esenbeck's System der Pilze und Schwamme, Wiirzburg, 1817. 



The discovery of the asci in a large number of Fungi led first of all to the mistaken 

 assumption that all the higher mushrooms, and especially Hymenomycetes, are 

 furnished with similar organs. This view is expressed from the time of Persoon's 

 attempt above mentioned, and especially of Link's Observationes inOrd. plant, naturales, 

 i (Magazin d. Ges. naturf. Freunde, Berlin, 1809), down to modern times (Fries, Syst. 

 Mycolog.; Epicrisis Syst. Mycolog.), and it is even represented, though somewhat ob- 

 scurely, in figures (Nees, Syst. d. P.). Further historical details will be found in the 

 writings of Berkeley, Phoebus, and LeveiHe", which are cited below. 



Vittadini, Monogr. Tuberacearum, discovered in 1831 or rediscovered the basidia of 

 Boletus and Hymenogaster, but it was not till after the appearance of the classical 

 and contemporary works of Le'veille', Recherches sur 1'Hymdnium des Champignons, 

 (Ann. d. sc. nat. s6r. 2, VIII, 1837), and Berkeley, On the fructification of Hyme- 

 nomycetous Fungi (Ann. of Nat. Hist. I (1838), p. 80), that they became more 

 generally known and more carefully studied, especially in the Hymenomycetes. 

 Others obtained independent results which agreed with those of LeVeiHe* and Berkeley, 

 but were not published for some time after ; as 



ASCHERSON, in Wiegmann's Archiv, 1838, and Froriep's Notizen, Band 50. 



PHOEBUS, Ueber d. Keimkornerapparat. d. Agaricinen u. Helvellaceen (Nov. Act. 

 Acad. Nat. Curios. XIX, II), (1842). 



CORDA, Icon. Fung. Ill, p. 40 (1839), in which Corda's earlier observations are 



noticed. 



Berkeley and Tulasne were the first who supplied more exact information with respect 

 to the basidia of the Gastromycetes (see end of section XC IV), and Tulasne more 

 recently with respect to those of the Tremellineae in Ann. d. sc. nat. se'r. 3, XIX. 



Among later investigators of basidia J. Schmitz should be mentioned, Ueber The- 

 lephora hirsuta, &c. in Linnaea, Bd. 17 (1843). 



The asci were simultaneously examined by LeVeiHe* and Phoebus (1. c.), but without 

 adding anything very important to the results of previous observers. 



In the more simple Fungi, the Hyphomycetes, Micheli (N. gen. t. 94) represents the 

 acrogenously formed spores of Botrytis and Aspergillus as placed on the extremities of 

 the hyphae. Succeeding writers for some time either gave similar accounts or were 

 unable to satisfy themselves with regard to the origin or insertion of the spores. Corda 

 in his later writings, Fresenius (Beitr.) and Bonorden (Allgemeine Mycologie) were 

 the first to throw more light on the questions relating to the origin of the spores. 

 The reader is referred to their works and to the descriptive literature ; no distinct 

 epoch marks the advance in our knowledge of these questions. 



As regards more delicate questions of histology and development which have only 

 recently been brought within reach of examination, I was myself the first to make 

 more exact researches into the development of spores in asci in my work Ueber 

 die Fruchtentwickelung der Ascomyceten, Leipzig, 1863, after various previous writers 

 had prepared the way for more precise enquiries, such were 



NAGELI in Linnaea XVI, p. 257 ; Id. in Zeitschrift f. vviss. Bot. Heft. I, p. 45, Heft 

 III and IV, p. 23. 



SCHLEIDEN, Grundziige, Aufl. 3, II, p. 45. 

 CORDA, Icon. fung. Ill, 38, V, 66, 74, 80. 

 FRESENIUS in Flora, 1847, p. n. 



