CHAPTER V. — COMPARATIVE REVIEW. — MUCORINI. 1 57 



Historical Remarks. The course of development in the Mucorini was first 

 observed throughout by myself in my examination of Sporodinia or Syzygites mega- 

 locarpus. carried out in i860 and published in a complete form in 1864, and next 

 by Tulasne in 1867 in Mucor fusiger, after he had already shown in 1855 that the 

 fungal forms designated by the generic names above given are parts of the same 

 species. Schacht's observations on Sporodinia 1 were published at the same time as my 

 own and not before them, and his results agreed with mine. For the further enlarge- 

 ment of our knowledge of this rich group we are indebted mainly to Brefeld and Van 

 Tieghem. In the work' 2 which I brought out in conjunction with Woronin in 1865 I 

 gave a fresh account of the development of Rhizopus nigricans, but it was imperfect, as 

 it did not contain the full history of the germination of the zygospores ; and some 

 confusion was caused in the same work by our introducing Chaetocladium, a parasite 

 on Mucor, into the cycle of forms of Mucor Mucedo on the evidence of cultures, which, 

 through my fault not Woronin's, were not perfectly regulated. It is not true indeed 

 that Thamnidium elegans was also introduced into the same cycle, but it would be no 

 serious fault if it had been, because it can form gonidiophores without sporangiola which 

 are then scarcely to be distinguished from those of Mucor Mucedo, and the separation 

 or non-separation of two species nearest to one another is almost without effect on 

 the determination of the course of development of the Mucoreae. Then Brefeld at 

 my instigation undertook a revision of 'the apparently irregular pleomorphy ' of the 

 collective supposed Mucor Mucedo and succeeded in making out the true state of the 

 matter. Van Tieghem and Le Monnier confirmed and added first to our incorrect, and 

 then to Brefeld's correct results. 



Other views on the course of development in the Mucorini differing from those 

 given above, especially the idea of a genetic connection between Mucor and Saccha- 

 romyces, which will be noticed again in section LXXVIII, belong to the history of the 

 pleomorphy craze (page 126). The special literature already cited and to be cited below 

 contains references to it. The reader is referred to the same source for an account of 

 the strange controversy maintained at an earlier time on the subject of the structure of 

 the sporangium of Mucor. In the case of a group so much discussed as the Mucorini 

 we can only give the main sources of information, in which some further and more 

 particular references on points of detail will be found. 



Literature of the Mucorini. 

 De Bary and Woronin, Beitrage, I and II. 



Tulasne, Note sur ies phenomenes de Copulation, &c. (Ann. d. sc. nat. ser. 5, VI, 

 1867). 



O. Brefeld, Bot. Unters. ii. Schimmelpilze, I and IV. 



P. Van Tieghem et G. Le Monnier, Recherches sur les Mucorinees (Ann. d. sc. nat. 

 ser. 5, XVII, 1873) ; cited in the text as Van Tieghem, I ;— Id., Nouvelles Recher- 

 ches sur les Mucorinees (Ann. d. sc. nat. ser. 6, I, 1875) ; cited in the text as Van 

 Tieghem, II ; — Id., Troisieme me"moire sur les Mucorinees in Ann. d. sc. nat. ser. 

 6, IV (1878) ; cited in the text as Van Tieghem, III. 



G. FRESENIUS, Beitr, z. Mycologie, I (1850), III (1863). 



E. Coemans, Spicilege mycologique No. 3, in Bull. Soc. Bot. Belg. I (Kickxella) ;— Id., 

 Quelques Hyphomycetes nouveaux (Mortierella, Martensella), in Bull. Acad. roy. 

 de Belgique, ser. 2, XV; — Id., Recherches sur le polymorphisme et les differents 

 appareils de reproduction chez les Mucorinees, I et II (Bull. Acad. roy. de Belgique, 

 XVI) ; — Id., Monographic du genre Pilobolus (Mem. couronne de l'Acad. roy. d. 

 Belg. XXX). 



1 Sitzungsber. d. Niedenh. Ges. z. Bonn, 7 Apr. 1S64. 



2 Beitr. II. 



