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wore ballotted for and.declared duly elected :—Dr, H. Philpot, 6, 
Sydenbam-road ; Mr, E. Mitchell, Sanitary Inspector, Croydon ; 
r. E. Bailey, 4, Ripley-place, Dingwall-road, Croydon; and Mr, 
H, W. Windsor, 8, Old Jewry, 
Dr, Carpenter said tho subject he had undertaken to introduce 
to the Society was Dry Rot and its Cryptogamio Alliances, by which 
he meant those mombors of the vegetable kingdom whieh produced 
effects corresponding to dry rot, and which effects took place in con- 
- Boquence of disturbances in animal and vogotable life produced by the 
be of fungi, It was right that he should define what was meant 
y Cryptogams, because there might be some persons present who 
wore not so thoroughly acquainted with Natural History as othors, 
and in order that it might be known in what part of the vegetable 
kingdom those plants were ng by naturalists, He alluded to 
tho difficultios which had been experienced as to whether they 
—__ Bhould be classed under the head of animals or vegetables, the lines 
of separation, as in many other instances in Nature, being exceed. 
ay aight, but he considered they really were vegetables, though 
© vegetables they destroyed starch, and gave out carbonic acid, 
__ Oryptogams, compared with exogens and endogens, had essential 
erences, for they consisted of cells only; this character was 
however not absolute, for vasoular tissue was found in ferns and 
lub mosses, though not even in the young plants of those families : 
again, growth always took place from the tips of threads of cells, and 
their ramifications, They had no true pistils, no pollen, and no 
anthers, but wore essentially agamous, ‘There was no embryo as far 
as the spores were concerned, This a of the vegetable 
kingdom is divided into aerogens and thallogens, Tho acrogens 
generally have herbaceous leafy appendages, with stomata and 
 Bpiral spermatozoids, Tho thallogons aro seldom herbaceous, 
and if loafy, have no stomata, 
Tho spores rarely produced prothallus, and if they do, they 
ene a second order of spores germinating at definite points, 
— if with spermatozoids aro.produced, they are not spiral. 
It is among the thallogens that we find the specios which con- 
tains ‘dry vot."’ Wo will trace it to its proper place, 
Tho thallogens aro divided into algals (or seawoeds), which 
lorived nourishment from tho water in which they were submerged, 
and differed as to fruit from the mycetales, the other division of 
thallogens, this latter was sub-divided into two families with 
sim kind of fruit, viz., the lichens and fungi. The lichens 
were aorial, and were nourished by air and not by a matrix, and 
contained gonidia, The family of fungi were hysterophytal or 
opiphytal,that is either growing within or upon organic matter, 
nourished by a matrix, not producing yonidia, Tho gonidia were 
‘ 
