[buller] presidential ADDRESS 13 



rate a new system to contain them; and he set his system out in 

 synoptical form. The only previous attempt at such a classification 

 had been made by Vaillant and was of a very rudimentary kind. But 

 this is not the place to enter on a full discussion of Micheli's systematic 

 work. Our special business just now is to consider his investigations 

 in connection with the reproduction of fungi. 



Micheli's investigations upon the reproduction of fungi seem to 

 have been guided by a desire to discover flowers and seeds in these 

 plants so that he might bring Fungi into line with Flowering Plants, 

 and thus make a useful contribution to systematic botany. Armed 

 with a microscope of very simple construction, he set about the task 

 of examining the most varied species of fungi for the expected seeds. 

 Success soon crowned his efforts. So far as the Hymenomycetes are 

 concerned, he found the spores (which he called seeds) on the gills of 

 Agaricus (his Fungus), in the tubes of Boletus (his Suillus), on the 

 spines of Hydnum (his Erinaceus,) and on the outer surface of the 

 branches of Clavaria. In all these cases, he illustrated his remarks 

 with drawings (PI. I, A, c, F, i, K, etc.; PI. II, a-f, i-k; PI. Ill, F, g); 

 but as, in describing his genus Agaricum which included such dimidiate 

 forms as Fomes, Polyporus, Tremella mesenterica, Hirneola auricula- 

 judae, Corticium, etc., he speaks generally of seeds as being present, 

 he doubtless saw them in species belonging both to the Tremellineae 

 and the Thelephoreae. Among Gastromycetes, he found spores in 

 Lycoperdon (PI. Ill, h), in the foetid liquid on the cap of Phallus, 

 and in the peridiola of the Nidularieae, (PI. Ill, i-k). Furthermore, 

 descending in the scale, Micheli showed that his seeds are also present 

 in the asci of certain Discomycetes (PI. Ill, l), in the perithecia of 

 Pyrenomycetes (PI. Ill, M, n), in Truffles, in Lichens (PI. Ill, O, P), 

 in the sporangia of Mucor (PI. IV, b), upon the sporophores of As- 

 pergillus and Botrytis (PI. IV, D, E, g), and, finally, in the sporangia of 

 the Mycetozoa (PI. Ill, a-e). A considerable amount of evidence 

 was thus accumulated to support the general conclusion that repro- 

 ductive bodies are present in all fungi. 



There is nothing in Micheli's text to indicate to us the exact 

 species of the Agaricineae which he used for his investigations, but it 

 is not improbable that among them was a Panaeolus. He discovered 

 that in some species of lamellate fungi, the spores can be seen on the 

 lamellae in groups of four (PI. I, i). In such a Panaeolus as Panaeolus 

 campanulatus, if one examines a gill in face view with the low power 

 of the microscope, the well separated groups of four black spores can be 

 distinguished very quickly and clearly. In other fungi, Micheli 

 found that the spores appeared not in groups of four but scattered 

 irregularly over the gill surface. Some of these fungi were undoubtedly 



