4 I S DIVISION JIT. —MODE OF LIFE OF THE FUNGI. 



gations which followed quickly on those of Schwendener were so extremely clear that 

 they were calculated to raise the probability of the view and the conviction of its truth 

 to the highest point, especially as Famintzin, Baranetzki and Woronin had previously 

 isolated Cystococcus and Nostocaceae from Parmelieae, Cladonicae and Peltigera 

 and cultivated them further as Algae with independent power of vegetation, — a mode 

 of proceeding which was carried out by Hornet in some other species. Cystococcus was 

 reproduced in abundance in these experiments from swarm-spores. 



Still Schwendener's view continued to encounter a strong opposition. It is not so 

 easy to shake oft" the yoke of the traditions in which men have been brought up. The 

 same early instruction which led me to a guarded expression of my hypothesis of the 

 Collemaceae and made Schwendener at first regard it as rash, had so fixed the convic- 

 tions of many who had devoted themselves specially to lichenology, that they rejected 

 sometimes with indignation a view which 'pitilessly robbed their favourite Lichens 

 of their independent existence and turned them by the stroke of a magician's wand into 

 a spider-like tyrant Fungus and a captured and enslaved Alga.' These words of Crombie 

 briefly indicate the point of view of the 'lichenologists,' and a paper by the same writer, 

 translated by von Krempelhuber in Flora, 1875, gives a condensed account of the 

 line of argument pursued by the opposition, and to this paper the reader is referred. 



The arguments advanced scarcely touched the heart of the question. Appeal was 

 made to earlier statements respecting the origination of hyphae from 'gonidia' and 

 gonidia from hyphae, which could not however stand the test of critical examination. 

 Korber 1 himself, the most acute in the search for effective arguments, admits the decisive 

 facts. He says that the hypha produced by the germination of the spore must meet 

 with the 'gonidia ' specifically belonging to it, that is, coming from the particular Lichen- 

 species, if it is to give rise to a normal Lichen. But this hypha and whatever else there is 

 in the Lichen- thallus except the 'gonidia' do not belong to a Fungus, but to the Lichen, and 

 the 'gonidia' which are specifically necessary are no Algae, but free independent Lichen- 

 gonidia which have become 'asynthetic' It is therefore a simple case of change of 

 name. That this is not the case as regards the Fungus-portion of the Lichen need not 

 be restated here. The view that the lower Algae which vegetate where Lichens are 

 found are Lichen-gonidia escaped from the thallus originated with Wallroth and was 

 often expressed after him 2 . It was excusable in the year 1825 ; but our knowledge of 

 the lower Algae had reached a point in 1874 which no longer permitted this summary 

 mode of dealing with them. With the needful limitations they must be admitted as 

 Algae in the sense which accords with our present views. The principal limitation is, 

 that the gonidium is an Alga which enters into the Lichen-thallus and may in some cases 

 leave it again, and this position has never been shaken. 



The orthodox lichenologists had always one objection in reserve. They had the right 

 to require and could not help requiring that it should be shown how a Lichen-thallus 

 proceeds from the germ-tube of the spore and from the supposed Alga. Without 

 complete proof that this takes place Schwendener's view was only a hypothesis, and 

 the more surprising the hypothesis was the more reasonable was it to say, that perhaps 

 there were things still unknown to us at the bottom of the whole matter, the discovery of 

 which might settle the question in another and unexpected manner. 



Schwendener's observation of the entrance of the hyphae of an unknown Fungus into 

 the jelly of algal colonies, which appear as constituents of Collemaceae, could not be 

 accepted as decisive, because it is not only possible but certain that this may happen 

 with several Fungi which are not Lichen-Fungi. Bornct's observations and his and 

 Treub's experiments in cultivation made some advance towards the decision of the 

 question, but their results were still imperfect. It was not till it was understood that the 



1 Zur Abwehr d. Schwendener-Bornet'schen Hcchtentheoric, Berlin, 1S74. 



2 See E. Fries, Liehenogr. Europ. XX. — Kutzingin I.innaca, 1S33; — Id., Phycol. gencralis, p. 167. 

 — Hicks in Quarterly Journ. Micr. Sc. VIII, p. 239, and new series, I, p. 157. 



