SHORT NOTES. 241 



of Fungoid hyphae and an Alga can be explained. Secondly, he 

 maintains that the gonidia of Lichens are not Algae, because: 1, in 

 true Algoe the gonidia never produce hyphse, while this is of common 

 occurrence in the spores of Lichens ; 2, that if the contrary were 

 true, it is strange that in every Lichen several types of Algse are 

 necessary for the production of the Lichen, and still more strange 

 that in nature these various Algce occur without any further result ; 

 3, because many forms of gonidia are not known to Algologists as such, 

 because they have never been seen in a free state ; 4, because the 

 Lichen gonidia correspond in their forms only to those Algae which 

 reproduce themselves by division, and not to those which propagate 

 by sexual reproduction, the former process being only a physiological 

 one common to many or all lower vegetable cells, and destitute of 

 systematic value. The transformation of gonidia into zoospores, 

 " Schwarmzellen," observed by Famintzin and others, is regarded as 

 a process also common to low vegetable cells. The so-called " asyn- 

 thetic gonidia," i. e., those which occur without the thallus, are, he 

 thinks, not Algae, but free Lichen-gonidia. Thirdly, he maintains 

 that Lichens are not evidences of parasitism, because the gonidia are 

 in no way debilitated, diseased, or destroyed by their contact with the 

 hyphae, but on the contrary derive from it nourishment and growth, 

 and if this view were accepted] there would result, as Th. Fries had 

 already observed, in *^ Lichenographia Scandinaviae,"p. 8, an incredible 

 double and mutual parasitism of hyphae upon gonidia and of gonidia 

 upon hyphae. In conclusion, Dr. Koerber gives his own views in 

 regard to the anatomy of Lichens. He agrees with Schwendener 

 that the gonidia are not produced from the hyphae of the thallus, but 

 regards the connection of the two as a simple process of nourishment. 

 To account for the origin of the thallus he supposes that the hyphae 

 of a germinating spore need, for their perfect development, to come 

 in contact with the form of gonidia belonging to their own species. 

 He asserts that the spores of some Lichens, as in the genus Sphcerom- 

 phale, which has muriform spores, do not produce hyphae, but gonidia 

 of the kind called microgonidia or leptogonidia ; and finally suggests 

 several different methods, according to which, in his opinion, the 

 lichen thallus may be produced by asynthetic gonidia (soredia.) Dr. 

 Krempelhuber, in a notice of this essay in " Flora " for March 11, ob- 

 serves that Koerber's hypothesis has not much better foundation than 

 Schwendener' s, with which it has much in common. If the observa- 

 tions in regard to the spores of species of Sphceromphale are con- 

 firmed, he thinks them against Schwendener ; and that, if Koerber's 

 arguments and observations are not conclusive against Schwendener's 

 hypothesis, they tend to render it still more improbable. On the other 

 hand, in ''Flora" for March 21, 1875, Dr. George Winter, in a 

 paper entitled, '*Zur Anatomie einiger Krustenflechten " (On the 

 Anatomy of some Crustaceous Lichens), disputes the assertion that 

 some Lichens are destitute of hyphae, and gives the result of his 

 investigations of Secoliga abstrusay Sarcogyne privigjia, Hymenelia 

 affinis, and Natrocymhe fuliginea (which last he maintains is a 

 Sphaeriaceous fungus), and concludes that these Lichens possess un- 

 doubted hyphae, differing in no respect from those of other Ascomycetes, 

 and that his observations go to confirm Schwendener's theory. His 



