198 The Scottish N'.aturalish 



papers, excursions, and meetings, has done much not only to en- 

 large and elucidate, but also to popularise the subject. Being a 

 peripatetic society, and holding its annual congresses in different 

 localities, it has helped to diffuse all over the country from such 

 centres a wonderful amount of interest in the objects of its study. 

 In order to show the vast progress that has been made within 

 the last twenty years, it is sufficient to say that the list of British 

 mosses has been increased one half more. The number of British 

 lichens, when I began to study them, included in Hooker's Crypto- 

 gamic Flora, was about five hundred species; Leighton's monograph 

 on British Lichens now describes more than two thousand species. 

 And as for fungi, the number of native species has been trebled, 

 and year by year is being added to by fresh discoveries. Well 

 searched as our tight little island has been for a hundred years at 

 least, not a season passes without many interesting additions being 

 made to our Cryptogamic flora. And not only in the increase 

 of species collected is this remarkable progress manifested, but 

 also in a more profound and accurate knowledge of their structure, 

 life-history, and relations. A vast deal has still to be done in the 

 way of correcting former errors, discovering new species, and 

 elucidating the structure and development of the more obscure 

 plants ; and, therefore, the labours of such a society as this are 

 urgently needed. Of late years, the principal controversies of 

 the scientific world have been connected with the lowest members 

 of the Cryptogamia ; and some of the profoundest problems of 

 biology the origin of life, whether by spontaneous generation or 

 by germs, the nature and spread of disease, the process of fer- 

 mentation, the methods of cure, including the antiseptic method, 

 and Pasteur's prophylactic researches and experiments involve 

 for their comprehension and solution a considerable knowledge of 

 the minutest forms of fungoid life. All this has drawn a large 

 measure of attention to the plants in which we are interested, 

 and has given to the aim? and objects of this society an im- 

 portance which should make its visit to any locality no ordinary 

 event. 



I shall not presume in this introductory address to convey any 

 instruction upon the subject of Cryptogamic Botany to those who 

 are more familiar with its details than I am, who, with all my love 

 for the study, am obliged by the pressure of other work, to give it 

 a subordinate place, and to keep it very much in the back-ground.. 



