[duller] presidential ADDRESS 15 



were supposed to be restricted to the gill edge, and therefore to arise 

 apart from the seeds which had been found scattered over the surface 

 of the gill sides. Boletus (his Suillus) was also regarded by Micheli 

 as containing his peculiar flowers, for, in referring to the underside 

 of the pileus, he says: "In the mouths of the tubes and in the upper 

 part of the stipe while the pileus is expanding, are found flowers which 

 are apetalous, monostemonous (i.e., consisting of a single filament), 

 sterile and naked, or in other words destitute of calyx, pistil, and stam- 

 ens" (PI. II, A, g,h).^ Tosucceedingbotanists, whatitwas that MicheH 

 saw in the Boleti has never been clear, for anything like that which he 

 represented at the mouth of the hymenial tubes does not exist. Pos- 

 sibly in his sections, he saw some of the elongated spores projecting 

 on their sterigmata, but failed to recognise them when seen in side 

 view as the same things which he knew from face view observations of 

 the hymenium, and so interpreted them as flowers. In making his 

 sketch (PI. II, g), he evidently drew his hymenial tube about twice 

 the natural size and then added the "flowers" at the mouth, but he 

 seems to have given these supposed flowers the same magnification 

 that they had when seen under the microscope. Possibly it was by 

 intentionally combining macroscopic and microscopic features that 

 Micheli hoped to make clear to others the relationship of the supposed 

 flowers to the seed-bearing tubes. 



In a third genus, his Agaricum, which included dimidiate Hymeno- 

 mycetes of various kinds, Micheli also described flowers (PI. I, N, o), 

 and in exactly the same words as for Boletus.^ Micheli therefore re- 

 garded the Hymenomycetes as simple forms of seed-plants. It is to 

 be noted that he did not call his flowers stamens: in his genus Fungus, 

 he simply says that they consist of nothing but a filament; whilst in 

 Agaricum and Suillus, he says that calyx, pistil, and stamens are 

 absent. Some subsequent writers have erroneously spoken of Micheli's 

 stamens when they should have said his flowers. 



The function of the hairs seen by Micheli at the margins of the 

 gills, although under investigation, is still unknown. According to 

 Knoll, in some cases at least, these hyphae are hydathodes.^ It seems 

 to me possible that in some species they may be useless structures 

 which could well be done without. However, this may be, it has long 

 been known that they cannot possibly be flowers. In giving this 

 interpretation, Micheli made one of those errors from which the 

 pioneer, entering a new and a strange world, can hardly escape. 



1 Ibid. p. 126; also Tab. 68. 



2 Ihid. p. 117. 



' F. Knoll, Untersuchungen iiber den Bau und die Funktion der Cystiden und 

 verwandter Organe, Jahrb. f. Wiss. Bot., Bd. 50, pp. 453-501. 



