248 ^ CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 



more perfect (i.e., typical) forms the sporidia included in the asci.i The class included 

 sclerotial forms (Sclerotium, Ef^ysiplie, etc.); Tremella; Dacrymyces ; the Discomycetes; 

 Solenia; Cypliella; with the highest order the Hymenini practically the same as the pres- 

 ent day Hymenomycetes. 



Von Schweinitz (1832) follows Fries but rearranges the classes somewhat. 



A. Ascomycetes: bearing the sporidia in asci' 



Class I. Hymenomycetes asci on an open receptacle 

 Class II. Pyrenomycetes, asci within perithecia 



B. Sporomycetes: bearing free sporidia, not in asci 



Class III. Gasteromycetes, sporidia free within a peridium 



Coniomycetes of Fries, sporidia without peridium 

 Class IV. Hyphomycetes, sporidia borne directly on the thallus 

 Class V. Gymnomycetes, sporidia borne on a sporodochium 



Berkeley (1857) made a considerable change in his classification of fnngi. 

 By this time the studies of Montagne and Leveille had shown the difference be- 

 tween the ascus and the basidium. The following is Berkeley's key. 



Fungales 



Sporidiiferi (sporidia in sacs) 



Ascomycetes: asci formed from the fertile cells of an hymenium 

 Physomycetes: fertile cells seated on threads not compacted into an hymenium 

 Sporiferi (naked spores) 



Hyphomj'cetes: spores naked, variously seated on conspicuous threads which are 



rarely compacted; mostly small in proportion to the threads 

 Coniomycetes: spores naked, mostly terminal, seated on inconspicuous threads, free 



or enclosed in a perithecium 

 Gasteromycetes: spores naked. Hymenium enclosed in a peridium, seldom ruptured 



before maturity 

 Hymenomycetes: spores naked. Hymenium free, mostly naked, or if enclosed at first, 

 soon exposed 



In the foregoing the Ascomycetes are the same as the group we now call by 

 that name; the Physomycetes are practically identical with our Mucorales; the 

 Hyphomycetes consist mainly of Fungi Imperfecti, but include also Perono- 

 spora. The Gasteromycetes include, in addition to our present-day Gastero- 

 mycetes, also the Mycetozoa; the Hymenomj^cetes include the Tremellales (in 

 the wider sense), the Polyporales, and the Agaricales. The Coniomycetes in- 

 clude Uredinales and Ustilaginales, in addition to some of the dematioid im- 

 perfect fungi. The Saprolegniales are still included by Berkeley among the 

 Conferva group of the algae, but with the doubt expressed that Achlya and its 

 allied genera may be molds. In this connection it must be remembered that 

 Nathaniel Pringsheim (1851, 1855, 1858, 1873) at first considered these fungi 

 algae because their vegetative structures and manner of reproduction, sexual 

 and asexual (the latter by zoospores), were in his opinion of greater weight in 

 assigning them to a place in the algae than their lack of starch and chlorophyll. 

 This seems to have been De Bary's opinion in his first paper on this group 

 (1852). 



The next important classification of the fungi was that by De Bary (1866) 

 in his textbook. He divides the fungi into four orders, the lowest, the Phyco- 

 mycetes, coming first as revealing their more primitive nature and relationship 



1. Remember that Fries, Schweintz, and other early mycologists did not set apart the 

 basidia from the asci. 



