NATURE OF FUNGI. 9 



as to name a flowering plant from a stray fragment of a root- 

 fibril accidentally cast out of the ground nay, even worse, for 

 identification would probably be easier. It is well to protest 

 at all times against attempts to push science to the verge of 

 absurdity ; and such must be the verdict upon endeavours to 

 determine positively such incomplete organisms as floating cells, 

 or hyaline threads which may belong to any one of fifty species 

 of moulds, or after all to an alga. This leads us to remark, in 

 passing, that there are forms and conditions under which fungi 

 may be found when, fructification being absent that is, the 

 vegetative system alone developed they approximate so closely 

 to alg33 that it is almost impossible to say to which group the 

 organisms belong. 



Finally, it is a great characteristic of fungi in general that 

 they are very rapid in growth, and rapid in decay. In a night 

 a puffball will grow prodigiously, and in the same short period 

 a mass of paste may be covered with mould. In a few hours a 

 gelatinous mass of Esticularia will pass into a bladder of dust, 

 or a Coprinus will be dripping into decay. Remembering this, 

 mycophagists will take note that a fleshy fungus which may be 

 good eating at noon may undergo such changes in a few hours 

 as to be anything but good eating at night. Many instances 

 have been recorded of the rapidity of growth in fungi ; it may 

 also be accepted as an axiom that they are, in many instances, 

 equally as rapid in decay. 



The affinity between lichens and fungi has long been re- 

 cognized to its full and legitimate extent by lichenologists and 

 mycologists.* In the " Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany," it 



* On the relation or connection between fungi and lichens, H. C. Sorby 

 has some pertinent remarks in his communication to the Royal Society on 

 "Comparative Vegetable Chroraatology " (Proceedings Royal Society, vol. xxi. 

 1873, p. 479), as one result of his spectroscopic examinations. He says, 

 "Such being the relations between the organs of reproduction and the foliage, 

 it is to some extent possible to understand the connection between parasitic 

 plants like fungi, which do not derive their support from the constructive 

 energy of their fronds, and those which are self-supporting and possess true 

 fronds. In the highest classes of plants the flowers are connected with the 

 leaves, more especially by means of xanthophyll and yellow xanthoi>hyl), 

 2 



