THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY, 



" per litora spargite museum, 



Naiades, et circilm vitreos considite fontes : 

 PoUice virgineo teneros hie carpite flores : 

 Iloribus et pictum, divae, replete canistrum. 

 At vos, o NymphjB Craterides, ite sub undas ; 

 Ite, recurvato variata corallia trunco 

 Vellite muscosis e rupibus, et mihi conchas 

 Ferte, Deaepelagi, et pingui conchylia succo." 



Parthenii Ec\. 1. 



No. 55. MARCH 1842. 



I. — Organographic and Physiologic Sketch of the Class Fungi, 

 by C. MoNTAGNE, D.M. Extracted from ^ Histoire phy- 

 sique, politique et naturelle de Pile deCuba/ par M. Ramon 

 DE LA Sagra, and translated and illustrated with short 

 notes by the Rev. M.J. Berkeley, M.A., F.L.S. 



The class Fungi is without doubt one of the largest of the 

 vegetable kingdom, and the study of the productions of which 

 it is composed is one of the most difficult in botany, whether 

 on account of the infinitely varied forms and disguises which 

 they assume, their small size requiring the aid of the micro- 

 scope, or their obscure place of growth. 



Neglected by the older botanists. Fungi began to attract 

 attention only towards the commencement of the last century. 

 It is to the immortal Micheli that we owe the first just 

 notions upon these vegetables ; it is he who first made known 

 the sporidia of Agarics, of which some modern mycologists 

 claim the discovery, and those other organs which many, 

 even at the present time, regard with BuUiard as real anthers, 

 but to which he assigned other functions. For him again was 

 reserved the honour of placing beyond doubt the reproduc- 

 tion of these plants by seeds or sporidia, which the greater 

 number of botanists before his days believed to be the result 

 of the decomposition of organized bodies, or of a spontaneous 

 or equivocal generation. Gleditsch and Batarra followed, 

 though at a distance, his footsteps, and fully confirmed his 

 observations. Bulliard not only recognised the fact, previously 



Ann. ^ Mag. N, Hist. Vol. ix. B 



