192 



RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



" canus," 



published, for he adds the correct descriptive word 

 of which Ray says nothing, as well as a small but characteristic 

 figure (Fig. 97). Both these additions he obtained from Banister's 

 MS. From Ray's description and Plukenet's figure, it is evident 

 that the species they had in view was similar to that which was 

 afterwards called Mucor roridus. 



These two notices stimulated observation, for a few years later 

 the first British record was published in Ray's Synopsis (1696), 

 in a list of plants communicated by Mr. James Petiver, who remarks 

 " This I have observed on Horse-dung about London," and refers to 

 Plukenet's figure. This record, therefore, may be considered to 



belong to Pilobolus roridus. It is repeated by 

 Ray in his Historia Plantarum in 1704, and 

 again in his Synopsis in 1724, and by Petiver in 

 his Gazophylacium (1711), where he gives a 

 figure similar to that of Plukenet. 



Another mention of a fungus belonging to 

 this genus (the earliest known to Coemans in 

 his review, 1861, of the literature of the sub- 

 ject up to his time) is due to Henry Baker, 

 who, in his Natural History of the Polype 

 Insect (1744), described a number of small 

 vase-like plants, filled with a clear liquid and 

 crowned by a black ball ; these, which he had found on mud 

 brought from the river Thames, were undoubtedly a species of 

 Pilobolus, presumably Pilobolus oedipus. 



In 1764 Otto Miiller discovered and afterwards (1782) described 

 and figured a Pilobolus under the name of " Kristallschwammchen " ; 

 he imagined it was in part an animal, in part a plant, and even in 

 part a crystal, thus partaking of all the three kingdoms of nature. 

 He thought he saw a slender worm-like body residing within the 

 organism, which, he says, " crawled round in the crystal globe and 

 seemed to swim at its ease in a tiny ocean." This was no doubt 

 a species of AnguilluHdae, but outside, not within, the subsporangial 

 swelling. The singularity of this view accounted for the wide- 

 spread attention which was given to his discovery. 



It was not till 1772 that Scopoli in his Flora Carniolica first 



Fig. 97.— The first 

 illustration of a 

 Pilobolus. Ban- 

 ister's drawing, 

 reproduced by 

 Plukenet (1691). 



