16 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Micheli's view that the flowers of a lamellate fungus are situated on 

 the margins of the gills, remote from the seeds which are scattered 

 over the gill-sides, now seems very curious; but it must be remembered 

 that, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the functions of the 

 different parts of true flowers were not generally understood. Camera- 

 rius (1691 and 1694) had proved by experiment that anthers are neces- 

 sary for the production of embryos, but the theories of fertilization 

 put forward by Morland (1703,) Geoffroy (1711), and Vaillant (1718), 

 show us that no one at that time understood how pollen led to the 

 fertilization of the ovules. It was not until 1846 that Amici and 

 Robert Brown demonstrated that pollen-tubes which grow down the 

 style, enter the micropyles of the ovules, and cause the egg-cells to 

 develop into embryos.^ There is nothing to show that Micheli in 

 1729 believed that fertilization is necessary for the development of 

 the so-called seeds of fungi. It is not improbable that he thought 

 that they could attain maturity without its help. 



In studying the gills of certain Agarics which grow on manure 

 heaps, Micheli discovered those peculiar organs of the hymenium which 

 we now call cystidia (PI. I, p Q, r). He says: "In some other species 

 of Fungi and especially in those which arise on the dung of horses, 

 cows, and similar animals, I have observed something that is note- 

 worthy, to wit, that the surface of their lamellae is ornamented, not 

 merely with seeds but also with transparent bodies which in some 

 species are conical, k, and in others pyramidal, l."^ The letters 

 K and L refer to his Plate 73. Turning from the structure to the 

 function of these bodies, he continues: "They are made by the wise 

 device of nature so that one lamella does not touch another, to the end 

 that the seeds produced between them should not be hindered in their 

 development or that they should not fall except when they ought to 

 fall." Micheli's Figure I in his Plate 73 (PI. I, p) gives a fairly cor- 

 rect idea of the distribution of the cystidia over the gill surfaces of such 

 Coprini as Coprinus fimetarius and C. macrorhizus. The conical 

 bodies were doubtless cystidia seen in the turgid condition, whilst 

 the pyramidal ones were cystidia which had collapsed on drying and 

 which therefore had developed angles. The gills in all probability 

 were examined in air, the more modern method of mounting prepara- 

 tions in water under a coverglass being then unknown. The cystidia 

 of the Coprini do not fall with the spores as Micheli supposed, but their 

 disappearance is due to autodigestion as I was able to prove in 1910.^ 



^ For a history of the early study of the flower, cf. L. C. Miall, The Early Natura- 

 lists, their Lives and Works, London, 1912, pp. 337-345. 



2 Micheli, loc. cit. p. 133. 



^ A. H. R. Buller, The Function and Fate of the Cystidia of Coprinus atramentarius 

 Ann. of Bot., Vol. XXIV, 1910, pp. 613-630. 



