CHAP, v.] the Influence of the Knowledge oj Cryptogams. 213 



ment of other associated Fungi. The merit of first breaking 

 ground in this direction belongs to the brothers Tulasne, who 

 published before 1850 the first more exact researches into the 

 Smuts and Rusts ; these were followed by a long series of 

 excellent works on different forms of Fungi, especially the 

 subterranean, whose mode of life and anatomy were described 

 and illustrated by splendid figures ; but their account of the 

 development of Ergot of rye (1853), their further investigations, 

 into the formation of the spores and the germination of Cysto- 

 pus, Puccinia, Tilletia, and Ustilago, and their discovery of 

 the sexual organs in Peronospora before 1861, were of greater 

 theoretical importance. The ' Selecta Fungorum Carpologia,' 

 which appeared in three volumes from 1861 to 1865 with fine 

 figures, some of which represented the process of development, 

 contributed greatly to the reformation of mycology. Mean- 

 while, Cessati had published investigations into the Muscardine- 

 fungus of the silkworm-caterpillar, and Cohn into a remarkable 

 Mould, the Pilobolus. 



But mycology owes its present form to none more than to 

 ANTON DE BARY, whose writings, the fruit of twenty years' 

 labour, it would take too much space to enumerate one by one. 

 With a correct understanding of the only means which can lead 

 to sure results in this difficult branch of study, De Bary made it 

 his first endeavour to perfect the methods of observation, and 

 not only sought for the stages of development of the lower 

 Fungi in their natural places of growth, but cultivated them 

 himself with all possible precautions, and thus obtained com- 

 plete and uninterrupted series of developments. By these 

 means he succeeded in proving that parasitic Fungi make their 

 way into the inside of healthy plants and animals, and that 

 this is the explanation of the remarkable fact, that Fungi live 

 in the apparently uninjured tissue of other organisms, a fact 

 which formerly had led to the supposition that such Fungi owe 

 their origin to spontaneous generation, or to the living contents 

 of the cells of their entertainers. Pringsheim had already 



