404 Meyen's Report for 1839 on Physiological Botany. 



fore be reckoned to the parenchym ; they appear most similar 

 to the lacteous vessels, and form a true vascular tissue. One 

 might place this fungous tissue together with the lacteous 

 vessels (to which M. Morren has given the name of Cinen- 

 chyme, Kivrja-i^i) ; but as it differs from these in the want of 

 the circulation, as well as in its woolly interwoven appear- 

 ance, M. Morren has called it Daedalenchyme. 



I cannot agree with M. Morren^s views of the nature of 

 the fungous tissue : I consider it as cellular tissue, and have 

 already described it (Phytotomy, 30, p. 138) as a peculiar 

 form of irregular cellular tissue under the name of Felt- 

 tissue. The cells are often long and branched, but the par- 

 titions which change these tubes into cells cannot be over- 

 looked* Several kinds of regular cellular tissue are found in 

 Fungi. M. Morren observed a spontaneous motion in the 

 spores of Agaricus epixylon as soon as put into water. [This 

 motion has however been already observed, and has been 

 seen even in dry fungus-spores. — Meyen.l 



In the foregoing Reports we have often made mention of a 

 fungus formation which of late years has attracted so much 

 attention, viz. Fermentation fungus : I have often attempted 

 to prove that it is improbable that this fungus should be 

 the cause of fermentation, although always found in ferment- 

 ing liquids ; but the fact of their being plants appears, to me 

 at least, to have been fully proved by the observations on 

 their increase and growth. However, M. Liebig*, in a trea- 

 tise on Fermentation, etc., has declared those statements of 

 the vegetable nature of the fermentation formations to be a 

 delusion ; and considers that gluten and albumen, which, 

 during the fermentation of beer and vegetable saps, are sepa- 

 rated in a changed state, appear in the form of globules, 

 which swim about either singly or several together, and 

 that these globules have been mistaken by natural philoso- 

 phers for Infusoriae and Fungi. Indeed, says Liebig, the 

 idea that they are animals or plants disproves itself, for in 

 pure sugar-water the seeds of the plants disappear during 

 fermentation ; the fermentation takes place without the ap- 

 pearance of a development or reproduction of the seeds, plants 

 or animals which have been regarded by philosophers as the 

 cause of the chemical process. 



I am not aware upon whose observations Liebig grounds 

 these latter statements ; probably they are his own, which, 

 however, must evidently give way to the more correct ones 

 of his predecessors. 



* Uber Gahrung Faulniss und Vervvesungund ihreUrsachen. Annalen 

 der Pluinnacie, 1839. 



