THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HLSTORY. 



" per litora spargite museum, 



Naiades, et circum vitreos considite fontes : 

 Poliice virgineo teneros hie carpite flores : 

 Floribus et pictum, diva;, replete eanistrum. 

 At vos, o Nymphse Craterides, ite sub undas ; 

 Ite, recurvato variata corallia trunco 

 V'ellite muscosis e rupibus, et mihi conchas 

 Ferte, Deje pelagi, et pingui conch ylia succo." 



Parthenii Eel. 1. 



No; 55. MARCH 1842. 



I. — Organographic and Physiologic Sketch of the Class Fungi, 

 by C. MoNTAGNE, D.M. Extracted from ' Histoire phy- 

 sique, politique et naturelle de I'ile deCuba,' par M. Ramon 

 DE LA Sagra, and translated and illustrated ivith short 

 notes by the Rev. M.J. Berkeley, M.A., F.L.S. 



1 HE class Fungi is without doubt one of the largest of the 

 vegetable kingdom, and the study of the productions of which 

 it is composed is one of the most difficult in botany, whether 

 on account of the infinitely varied forms and disguises which 

 they assume, their small size requiring the aid of the micro- 

 scope, or their obscure place of growth. 



Neglected by the older botanists, Fungi began to attract 

 attention only towards the commencement of the last century. 

 It is to the immortal Micheli that we owe the first just 

 notions upon these vegetables ; it is he who first made knosvu 

 the sporidia of Agarics, of which some modern mycologists 

 claim the discovery, and those other organs which many, 

 even at the present time, regard with Bulliard as real anthers, 

 but to which he assigned other functions. For him again was 

 reserved the honour of placing beyond doubt the reproduc- 

 tion of these plants by seeds or sporidia, which the greater 

 number of botanists before his days believed to be the result 

 of the decomposition of organized bodies, or of a spontaneous 

 or equivocal generation. Gleditsch and Batarra followed, 

 though at a distance, his footsteps, and fully confirmed his 

 observations. Bulliard not only recognised the fact, previously 



Ann. ^ Mag. N. Hist. Vol. ix. B 



