268 H. MARSHALL WARD. 



pileus arises from the mycelium, and completes its development 

 without the intervention of any sexual process, or the appearance 

 of any sexual organs; and since no one has succeeded in render- 

 ing it probable that sexual organs occur later, we may probably 

 accept Brefeld^s view that no sexes exist in the Agarics as we 

 know them, but that they are large aggregations of hyphse 

 producing asexual spores. Whether we really know the whole 

 life history of any of these forms is a question which cannot be 

 raised with much advantage just now. 



It thus appears that while the discoveries of Pringsheim, 

 Tulasne, and De Bary led, on the one hand, to numerous other 

 observations of sexual organs in the Fungi, and seemed to show 

 that a sexual process is nearly universal with them as with other 

 groups of living beings equally complex in organisation; on 

 the other hand, there were numerous cases where room for 

 serious doubts existed — doubts not dispelled by the recognition 

 of the difficulty of the research. As time passed, moreover, 

 the suspicion that certain groups of fungi are really devoid of 

 sexual organs (although analogy would lead us to expect them) 

 increased, and in some cases reached conviction. Of course, we 

 are not referring to the very obscure lower groups — the 

 Schizomycetes, Saccharomycetes, and Myxomycetes, 

 &c. — which we shall leave out of account altogether in this 

 survey. 



It is not to be forgotten that much more was known about 

 the physiology of the Fungi by this time, and that the recog- 

 nition of saprophytic and parasitic forms implied considerable 

 advance in our knowledge of their modes of life, changes of 

 habit, and so forth. The progress made in the study of fer- 

 mentation, moreover, had its effect on the study of mycology 

 generally ; and the progress of biology as a whole — so particu- 

 larly active during this period — had, in 1880, left its mark on 

 this specialised branch of research. 



It is not necessary to enter into all the systems of classifi- 

 cation proposed for the Fungi during this period. The well- 

 known grouping of Sachs and Cohn, presented to English 

 readers in the " Text-book " of the former, was admitted to be 



