4 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



are produced as minute particles on the hymenium which lines the 

 interlamellar spaces of such Agarics as Panaeolus and Coprinus. His 

 Truffles may possibly have included Scleroderma which produces its 

 spores within its cleistocarps as a black powder, whilst the fungi which 

 he observed on tan were probably Mycetozoa such as the well-knQwn 

 Flowers of Tan, Fuligo varians, which develops its spores in the form 

 of a dark powder surrounded by a thin and fragile covering. We must 

 therefore acknowledge that Porta rightly recognised the spore-dust 

 of certain fungi, as consisting of reproductive particles corresponding 

 in function to the seeds of Higher Plants; but he had no proof to offer. 

 He performed no cultural experiments and therefore his view could not 

 be at all convincing to sceptics. 



The seventeenth century saw the invention and improvement of 

 the microscope, an instrument fraught with enormous possibilities 

 for the increase of knowledge. With the employment of this new aid 

 to research, the hitherto invisible spores of certain fungi were revealed 

 to the curious eyes of Hooke and Malpighi; but the final discovery and 

 correct interpretation of the reproductive bodies was left, as we shall 

 see, to Micheli. 



Robert Hooke issued his Micrographia or some Physiological Des- 

 criptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses with Observa- 

 tions and Inquiries therefrom in 1665. In his pioneer work in the world 

 of the minute, he brought under his microscope a great variety of 

 objects among which were certain fungi. He gave descriptions and 

 illustrations of a White Mould (Mucor) which he found growing on 

 the sheepskin cover of a book, and also of "a plant growing in the 

 blighted or yellow specks of Damask-rose-leaves, Bramble-leaves and 

 some other kinds of leaves."^ He failed to discover the spores in the 

 sporangia of the Mucor, but in the case of the second fungus which it 

 is evident from his illustration was a Phragmidium, one of the Rust 

 fungi, he certainly observed the teleutospores.^ His illustration is the 

 very first ever made of the reproductive bodies of a fungus: it shows 

 several Phragmidium pustules with the stalked spores protruding out- 

 wards, but the multicellular nature of the latter was overlooked. 

 Although it is quite certain that Hooke saw these spores, he failed to 

 interpret them correctly: judging them by their external form he took 

 them for seed-pods, and thought that they might contain seed which 

 would be liberated like that from the follicles of the Columbine. 



Hooke, notwithstanding his microscopic work, thoroughly believed 

 in spontaneous generation. Even in the case of his Phragmidium, 

 he supposed that the fungus arose in the first place by putrifaction 



' Robert Hooke, Micrographia, 1665, pp. 121-127. 

 - Ibid., Fig. 2, Schema XH. 



