16 HISTORY OF LICHENOLOGY 



departure in lichenology. De Notaris published the results of his researches 

 in a fragment of a projected larger work that was never completed. Though 

 his views were overlooked for a time, they were at length fully recognized 

 and further elaborated by Massalongo 1 in Italy, by Norman 8 in Norway, by 

 Koerber 3 in Germany and by Mudd 4 in our own country. Massalongo had 

 drawn up the scheme of a great Scolia Lichenographica, but like de Notaris, 

 he was only able to publish a part. After twelve years of ill-health, in which 

 he struggled to continue his work, he died at the early age of 36. 



Lindsay 6 , Mudd and Leighton 6 were at this time devoting- great attention 

 to British lichens. Lauder Lindsay's Popular History of British Lichens, 

 with its coloured plates and its descriptive and economic account of these 

 plants has enabled many to acquire a wide knowledge of the group. Mudd's 

 Manual, a more complete and extremely valuable contribution to the subject, 

 followed entirely on the lines of Massalongo's work. From his large 

 experience in the examination of lichens he came to the conclusion that : 

 " Of all organs furnished by a given group of plants, none offer so many 

 real, constant and physiological characters as the spores of lichens, for the 

 formation of a simple and natural classification." 



Meanwhile, a contemporary writer, William Nylander, was rising into 

 fame. He was born at Uleaborg in Finland 7 in 1822 and became interested 

 in lichens very early in his career. His first post was the professorship of 

 botany at Helsingfors; but in 1863 he gave up his chair and removed to 

 Paris where he remained, except for short absences, until his death. One 

 of his excursions brought him to London in 1857 to examine Hooker's 

 herbarium. He devoted his whole life to the study of lichens, and from 

 1 852, the date of his first lichen publication, which is an account of the lichens 

 of Helsingfors, to the end of his life he poured out a constant succession of 

 books or papers, most of them in Latin. One of his earliest works was an 

 Essay on Classification* which he elaborated later, but which in its main 

 features he never altered. He relied, in his system, on the structure and form 

 of thallus, gonidia and fructifications, more especially on those of the 

 spermogonia (pycnidia), but he rejected ascospore characters except so far as 

 they were of use in the diagnosis of species. He failed by being too isolated 

 and by his unwillingness to recognize results obtained by other workers. 

 In 1866 he had discovered the staining reactions of potash and hypochlorite 

 of lime on certain thalli, and though these are at times unreliable owing to 

 growth conditions, etc., they have generally been of real service. Nylander, 

 however, never admitted any criticism of his methods; his opinions once 

 stated were never revised. He rejected absolutely the theory of the dual 

 nature of lichens propounded by Schwendener without seriously examining 



1 Massalongo 1852. * Norman 1852. 3 Koerber 1855. , * Mudd 1861. 



6 Lindsay 1856. 6 Leighton 1851, etc. 7 See Hue 1899. 8 Nylander 1854 and 1855. 







