Transactions of The Royal Society of Canada 



SECTION IV 

 Series III JUNE 1915 Vol. IX 



Presidential Address. 

 By A. H. Reginald Buller, 



Professor of Botany at the University of Manitoba. 



(Read May Meeting 1915) 



Micheli and The Discovery of Reproduction in Fungi. 

 (With Four Plates) 



I have long been of the opinion that no man can have a full con- 

 ception of any subject upon which he may specialize until he has studied 

 the history of its development. Imbued with this belief, I have spent 

 a considerable amount of time, during the past six years, in two of 

 the most famous of the Old World libraries, perusing many ancient 

 and modern works written by my predecessors upon those peculiar 

 plants which are known as fungi. In the course of my reading, I 

 have come upon a work published some two centuries ago by an Italian, 

 Pier' Antonio Micheli, in the pages of which a new and a very bright 

 light was thrown on fungi, the fact for the first time being made 

 clear that fungi possess reproductive bodies which are able to bring 

 about the propagation of the species. This important discovery 

 made it possible for later botanists to work out the life-histories of 

 fungi, with a consequent enrichment of the science of Botany in gen- 

 eral, and a great advance in Plant Pathology in particular. 



The discoveries of Micheli in connection with the reproduction 

 of Fungi seem to me to be so interesting in themselves and of such his- 

 toric importance, that I intend in this Address to lay them before you. 

 Since the crucial experiments devised by Micheli were carried out in 

 the year 1718, my remarks will perhaps serve, although they are a little 

 previous, as a bicentenary celebration. 



In order to give to Micheli's work a proper historical background, 

 so that we may see it in its right perspective, we shall first consider the 

 question of reproduction in fungi as it appeared to Micheli's pre- 

 decessors. 



Sec. IV, 1915—1 



