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of the flower, or repioductive organs. We may then suppose that un- 

 der the influence of the cold or other external agent, an arrest of de- 

 velopment in the vegetable tissue of the fungus would be attended 

 with the development of reproductive tissue, as we know occurs 

 amongst the higher forms of plants. It may be objected that we need 

 some further proof that the pileus and stipes are really the analogues 

 of the nutritive tissue. I think that this can be clearly made out by 

 passing along from the fungi to the lichens, and from these to the He- 

 paticcB and the mosses and ferns, where every one will allow that the 

 green parts are the nutritive tissue of the plant and the analogues of 

 the leaves. There is one curious point with regard to the morpholo- 

 gical structure of the fungi which I would here point out. It is that 

 the whole body of the fungus is the analogue of the flower in the 

 higher plants, the thallus of all the Cryptogamia being in this family 

 as its minimum of development ; the only analogue of the thallus 

 being the mycelium, which is seen in the early part of the development 

 of all fungi, and disappears when the hymenium is developed. I may 

 perhaps here be allowed to mention how beautifully this fact con- 

 firms the relation of polarity which Professor E. Forbes has pointed 

 out, as existing in every part of the animal and vegetable kingdom. 

 The Fungi and the Algte must be regarded as parallel groups, and in 

 fact, up to the present moment, there is no definition that will distin- 

 guish between many of their groups, so that a whole tribe, ByssoidecBy 

 are referred sometimes to one, sometimes to the other, and Sometimes 

 distributed variously through each. The characteristics of the con- 

 centrate sphere are a tendency to concentration in the organs of re- 

 production, to the formation of an internal skeleton in the organs of 

 support, and to a unity in the combination of its parts. Of these 

 three characters the fungi are a remarkable exhibition, as seen in the 

 Agarics, and generally in the higher forms of Hymenomycetes. On the 

 other hand, the characters of the articulate sphere are a tendency to 

 elongation, the formation of an external skeleton, and articulation, all 

 of which characters are conspicuous in the Conferva:, the LarninariiB, 

 and other forms of the family Algce. The whole fungus may then be 

 said to be the analogue of the flower, and just in the same way as the 

 calyx and corolla stand in the relation of nutritive organs to the more 

 especially reproductive stamens and pistil, so do the pileus and stipes 

 stand in the relation of nutritive organs to the hymenium." — p 34. 



In this long and somewhat obscurely worded paragraph we find the 

 " pileus and stipes" regarded" as the representatives of the leaf or nutri- 

 tive organ in the higher plants," and " the hymenium as the analogue 



