[buller] presidential ADDRESS S 



of the leaves. However, he also thought that when it had so arisen, 

 it might produce seeds which would propagate the fungus from leaf to 

 leaf. He regarded highly organized plants as compound, and imagined 

 that during their decay, they break up into simpler ones. He thus 

 accounted for the coming into existence of the Mistletoe on the Oak, 

 the Jew's-ear Fungus on the Elder, and Lichens on the trunks of trees. 

 "And this," he says, "we see to be very much the method of nature 

 throughout its operations, putrefactive Vegetables very often producing 

 a Vegetable of a much less compounded nature, and of a much inferior 

 tribe."! 



So far as Mushrooms are concerned, Hooke concluded from his 

 observations that they are generated without seed in any part of them, 

 "for," he says, "having considered several kinds of them, I could never 

 find anything in them that I could with any probability guess to be 

 the seed of it, so that it does not as yet appear (that I know of) that 

 Mushrooms may be generated from a seed, but they rather seem to 

 depend merely upon a convenient constitution of the matter out of 

 which they are made, and a concurrence of either natural or artificial 

 heat."^ He also concluded that Moulds "may be produced at any 

 time from any kind of putrifying Animal or Vegetable Substance, as 

 Flesh, etc., kept moist and warm . . ." and that "they require no 

 seminal property."^ 



Malpighi, one of the founders of vegetable histology, published 

 his Anatome Plantarum under the auspices of the Royal Society of 

 London in 1675-1679. In this work, several pages are given to fungi, 

 which are dealt with along with Mistletoe, Lichens, Lunularia, and 

 Mosses, under the heading De plantis quae in aliis végétante The 

 anatomy of the fungi which were investigated, is illustrated in a Plate, 

 (Tab. XXVH) which contains twenty-three sketches of various Moulds 

 (his Mucedo) and three of an Agaric (his Fungus). The Moulds were 

 found on the putrescent pericarps of melons, lemons, and oranges, 

 upon wood, and upon bread. Judging by the illustrations, the species 

 which Malpighi observed, included a Pin Mould (Rhizopus nigricansY 

 a Monilia," a Botrytis,^ and a Pénicillium.^ Malpighi actually saw 

 the -spores of some of these fungi, for in several sketches he shows the 

 spores properly attached to sterigmata which come off from a common 



1 Ibid., p. 123. 



2 Ibid., p. 127. 



3 Ihid. 



* M. Malpighi, Anatome Plantarum, Londini, 1679, pars altera, pp. 62-67. 

 5 Ihid., Tab. XXVII, Fig. 108, F. 

 ^ Ibid., Fig. 108, L. 



7 Ibid., Fig. 108, C, D, K, etc. 



8 Ibid., Fig. 109, V, T. 



