94 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
fungi (forms of Micrococcus, etc), owe their origin to a 
number of different archigonic Monera (that is, Monera 
originating by spontaneous generation). 
In any case the Thread-plants cannot be considered as 
the progenitors of any of the higher vegetable classes. 
Lichens, as well as fungi, are distinct from the higher 
plants in the composition of their soft bodies, consisting 
as it does of a dense felt-work of very long, variously 
interwoven, and peculiar threads or chains of cells—the 
so-called hyphee, on which account we distinguish them 
as a province under the name Thread-plants. From 
their peculiar nature they could not leave any important 
fossil remains, and consequently we can form only a very 
vague guess at their palzeontological development. 
The first class of Thread-plants, the Fungi, exhibit a 
very close relationship to the lowest Alge; the Algo-fungi, 
or Phycomycetes (the Saprolegnise and Peronosporee) in 
reality only differ from the bladder-wracks and Siphones 
(the Vaucheria and Caulerpa) mentioned previously by the 
want of leaf-green, or chlorophyll. But, on the other hand, 
all genuine Fungi have so many peculiarities, and deviate so 
much from other plants, especially in their mode of taking 
food, that they might be considered as an entirely distinct 
province of the vegetable kingdom. 
Other plants live mostly upon inorganic food, upon simple 
combinations which they render more complicated. They 
produce protoplasm by the combination of water, carbonic 
acid, and ammonia. They take in carbonic acid and give 
out oxygen. But the Fungi, like animals, live upon 
organic food, consisting of complicated combinations of 
carbon, which they receive from other organisms and 
