361 



XXXIV. — Selecta EuNaoETJM Caepologia, ea doctjmenta et 



ICONES POTISSIMUM EXKIBENS QVM VAEIA EEUCTTTUM: ET SEMI- 



NUM geneea in eodem fungo simul atjt ticissim adesse 

 demonsteent. — Junctis studiis ediderunt Ludoviciis-Eenatus 

 Tulasne et Carolus Tulasne. Tomus primus. Erysiphei. Praemit- 

 tuntur prolegomena de fungorum conditione naturali crescendi 

 modo et propagatione. Parisiis, 1861. 4to. 



This work is well calculated to maintain tlie credit of the Prencli 

 Botanists as being foremost in the dissemination of sound views upon 

 the subject of Fungi. The notion of PKny that fungi originated " ex 

 pituita arborum," of Bauhin (in 1623), that they were produced by 

 thunder and rainy weather, and of Dillenius (in 1719), that they 

 arose " ex putredinosa fermentatione," may now create a smile, but 

 such ideas are in reality not far removed from those of more modem 

 writers, who have treated the Uredinei as a diseased condition of 

 vegetable tissue. 



In noticing the succession of fallacies which have thus existed 

 from time to time, the authors observe, " Longam banc opinionuna 



errorumque seriem dum moleste contemplemur, hoc 



tamen non nobis displicet, quod gallici scriptores omni tempore sen- 

 tentias probatiores ssepius tueantur," and they refer with satisfac- 

 tion to the writings of Jussieu and Bulliard as being in advance of 

 the general ignorance in which the subject was enveloped. Dismiss- 

 ing, however, in a very short space the controversies of the earlier 

 naturalists, the authors start upon the assumption that fungi are 

 now known to originate from seed, that they develop gradually, that 

 they produce fruits of various kinds, and afterwards perish, and that 

 their vitality is of a vegetable not of an animal nature ; and although 

 in consequence of the doubts raised by De Bary as to the nature of 

 the Myxogastres, these organisms are excluded from the considera- 

 tions applicable to fungi in general, and are only casually alluded to 

 throughout the work, the authors do not hesitate to say that De 

 Bary's views are " contra omnem ferme verisimiHtudinem." 



In the remarks at the commencement of the second chapter rela- 

 tive to the great number of existing fungi, allusion is made to the 

 statements of Pries upon the same subject in the Summa Vegetabi- 

 Kum Scandinaviae, but the " quadraginta millia formarum," to which 

 Pries' estimate applied, included the whole of the Agaricini, and not 

 (as is stated in the text), only the genus Agaricus. We may observe 

 that Pries' calculation is entirely speculative, and it is not improba- 

 ble that his conjectural numbers are far too high. With regard to 

 the Pyrenomycetes, of which Pries reckons there may be 100,000 

 species, no data exist to justify such an assumption. Our own 

 experience would lead us to think that the great Swedish mycolo- 

 gist has considerably over-estimated the number of ideally distinct 

 forms. 



