30 WILLIAM ARCHER. 
Before the propounding of the new hypothesis, however, 
certain of these forms which, if met with without apothecia, 
would have been referred to the genus Scytonema, had been 
found with apothecia and new genera were formed for them 
by Itzigsohn and Nylander under the names Ephebella, 
Itzigsohn, and Gonionema, Nyl. (or Thermutis, Fr.?). In 
fact, they seem to have regarded the “ barren” and the “ fer- 
tile” plant as each belonging to distinct genera, even as ap- 
pertaining to different classes, that is, that the “ barren” was 
to be accounted an “ alga”’ and the “ fertile” a “ lichen.” 
Of course had Schwendener’s view, but comparatively 
lately put forward, been then current, and had it been adopted 
by the discoverers of those apothecia-bearing Sirosiphonacee 
and Scytonemacee, the case would have been different: the 
new name would in that case have been, as I take it, under- 
stood to be applied to the ‘‘ new ascomycetous parasite, within 
the Sirosiphon, or of Scytonema—the double names should 
still pass current, for, in that case, they would stand for essen- 
tially distinct things, and no less so because these occur 
sometimes living in consort and in a state of mutual physio- 
logical dependence. 
The present communication, therefore, loses much of the 
significance it might have been at least temporarily held to 
possess, from not being brought out at the time the ob- 
servations were made, but after the new theory had been 
not only propounded, but had gained a large amount of 
currency. 
Nevertheless, although more superficially put forward 
than if I had made the matter public at the time of the 
observations when fresh on my mind, this will, I think, be 
the first record of “apothecia” being noticed in at least 
five fresh forms or further species referable to separate 
“ genera” (Scytonema, Sirosiphon, Stigonema) in the algal 
point of view. If this record had been brought out at that 
time, indeed, it would have pointed, as I should have taken it, 
to the assumption that these, in place of genera of alge, were 
in truth genera of lichens—not ‘‘ new” lichens, but lichens 
not taken previously ‘‘in fruit.” 
With respect to Ephebe and Spilonema, Schwendener 
argues, that a genetic connection between the hyphe and the 
gonidia is impossible. For the whole chain of gonidia leads 
onwards to the apical cell, by the unlimited subdivision of 
which new cells continuously originate, which are themselves 
again to be regarded as mother-cells (in some genera) of so 
many groups of gonidia. The assumption of a new formation 
of gonidia by growing-off from the hypha has no justification 
