Massee. — On the Fungus Flora of Netv Zealand. 283 



Lichenes cannot be considered in the sense of being a branch 

 from the fungal stock, and must have come into existence long 

 after the complete differentiation of the Fungi was effected, 

 because the fungal element in lichens corresponds to the asci- 

 gerous Fungi, SphcBriacece and Discomycetes, which do not 

 belong by any means to the earliest differentiated groups of 

 Fungi. 



The bulk of Fungi with which people generally are most 

 familiar are truly terrestrial, belonging to sections that have 

 ages ago forsaken the aquatic home of their ancestors ; never- 

 theless, numerous truly aquatic Fungi do still exist, and such, 

 as would be expected, are morphologically most in touch with 

 the AlgaB. As an example of such algal-like Fungi, as they are 

 termed by Brefeld, may be mentioned the SaprolegnicB, which 

 morphologically, and in the sexual mode of reproduction, 

 closely agree with such Algae as Vaucheria. These primitive 

 Fungi also agree with some of the Algae in possessing a uni- 

 sexual, as well as a sexual, mode of reproduction, and one 

 feature that has been constantly kept in view in the evolution 

 of the Fungi, and to which they owe to a great extent their 

 individuality as a distinct group of organisms at the present 

 day, is the gradual suppression of the sexual mode of repro- 

 duction, and the proportional elaboration of the asexual 

 method, until finally, in the most highly evolved and at the 

 same time the most modern section of the Fungi, the Basi- 

 diomycetes, the sexual mode of reproduction has completely 

 disappeared, and so dissimilar are the components of this 

 group, including the numerous forms popularly known as 

 mushrooms, toadstools, puff balls, &c., to the Algas that, but 

 for the connecting-links still existing in an almost unbroken 

 chain, their origin would certainly never have been suggested. 



The only observable difference between the Algae and 

 those Fungi most closely related consists in the suppression 

 of chlorophyll in the latter — a condition which necessitated 

 a change in the mode of life : the Fungi, being unable to 

 assimilate inorganic food, became parasites, obtaining their 

 food from living organisms — plants or animals ; or sapro- 

 phytes, obtaining their food from dead and decaying organic 

 matter. 



The early groups of Fungi include numerous parasitic 

 species, whereas in the later, or more modern, groups sapro- 

 phytic species are most abundant. Numerous species can 

 only live, through their entire life-cycle, as parasites, and 

 are termed " obligate parasites," as the members of the 

 UredinecB, commonly known as "rusts," the destructive para- 

 sites of cereals, &c. ; others possess the power of living as 

 saprophytes and parasites respectively at different periods 

 of their existence, and are called " facultative parasites." 



