3H 



NA TURE 



[February 6, 1896 



work on the bodily accompaniments of feeling and 

 emotion. 



The idea of "moral pathology" is • very much in 

 evidence at present, underlying as it does the work of 

 Lombroso and his school. Dr. Giles' book is of a very 

 different kind. It is an unpretentious sketch of moral 

 defects from the point of view of the physician, con- 

 sidered under such headings as causation, diagnosis, 

 prognosis and treatment. The work cannot be 

 regarded as an important contribution to ethical science, 

 but it is written brightly and with common sense. The 

 principles which regulate diagnosis and treatment in 

 medical practice are applied with considerable ingenuity 

 to moral disease. There is an interesting chapter in 

 which the idea of morbid diathesis is applied, and several 

 types of character which predispose to moral disease are 

 sketched. 



PROTOTYPES OF THE FUNGI. 

 Protobasidiomyceten. Untersuchungen aus Brasilien. 

 Von Alfred Moller. Pp. xiv + 179. (Jena : Fischer, 

 1895.) 



THE present work forms the eighth part of Dr. 

 Schimper's " Botanischen Mittheilungen aus den 

 Tropen." The author is well known for his mycological 

 researches, having previously contributed two parts to the 

 above-named communications — " The Fungus-Gardens 

 of some South American Ants," and " Brazilian Fungus- 

 Flowers." To Elias Fries is due the credit of having 

 first reduced the previous chaotic condition of mycology 

 to an intelligent and scientific standpoint ; even much 

 beyond what could have been expected, considering that 

 naked eye characters, or at most when aided by a pocket 

 lens, were only available. Berkeley and Tulasne fol- 

 lowed, and, aided by the microscope, added greatly to 

 our knowledge of the minute structure and affinities of 

 the various groups of fungi, a knowledge which has been 

 in some instances more readily utilised than acknow- 

 ledged by their successors. Later, De Bary's classical 

 work indicated clearly what could be done, by means of 

 pure cultures, towards the elucidation of the life-history of 

 species, and a knowledge of true affinities ; a method 

 which is being developed at the present day by Brefeld, to 

 the extent that the last-named author has presented us 

 with his idea of the gradual evolution of the fungi, from 

 their algal ancestors to the highly differentiated, asexual 

 condition, represented by the members of the Basidio- 

 mycetes. As usual in classifications based on progressive 

 morphological development, connecting links between 

 groups that the evidence at hand suggest as forming a 

 natural sequence, are not always forthcoming. The 

 purport of the work under consideration is to make known 

 a series of such connecting links or primitive types of the 

 great group of fungi known as the Basidiomycetes ; and 

 if the author's conclusions prove to be well founded, the 

 neighbourhood of Blumenau, in the province of Santa 

 Catharinea, Brazil, where the material was collected, 

 must be looked upon as a veritable garden of prototypes 

 of the higher fungi. 



Brefeld's conception of the Basidiomycetes, character- 

 NO. I371, VOL. 53] 



ised by a single feature, the basidium or spore-bearing 

 organ, which must be a terminal, clavate, or sub-cylindrical 

 cell, bearing at its apex four — less frequently two — slender 

 prolongations, or sterigmata, each of which bears a spore 

 at its tip, is accepted, and the evolution of this group 

 from the Ustilagineae is bridged over by six families, 

 collectively constituting the transition group called Proto- 

 basidiomycetes. Four of the transition families agree 

 in having the basidium furnished with transverse septa, 

 hence formed of two or more superposed cells, and bear- 

 ing the spores laterally. In the remaining two families 

 the basidia are vertically divided into four lobes, each 

 of which runs out into a sterigma bearing a spore at its 

 apex. The sub-families and genera of these families are 

 considered as furnishing transitions to the Basidiomy- 

 cetes proper. The following illustrate the value of these 

 transition stages, being new sub-families and genera 

 included in the Tremellaceas, one of the families described 

 above as having vertically divided basidia : — 



Protopolyporece : Tremellaceaj with the aspect of the 

 hymenium like that of the Polyporeae. 



ProtohydnecB : Tremellacete with the hymenium re- 

 sembling that of the Hydneas. 



Genera are as follows : — 



Protomerulius : Macroscopic appearance that of the 

 genus Merulius, but with basidia of the Tremellae. 



It is doubtful as to whether the author's view of tran- 

 sition groups, as illustrated above, will be accepted by 

 mycologists. The genus Merulius is a typical Basidio- 

 mycete, so far as its basidia are concerned, but that 

 something looking suf>erficially like Merulius., but having 

 basidia of a lower type, is the prototype of Merulius., 

 appears to be more a matter of faith than of conviction. 

 The same argument is applied everywhere ; the general 

 appearance is that of some well-known family or genus 

 of the Basidiomycetes, but the structure of the basidia 

 is that of the Protobasidiomycetes. 



A wider knowledge of living species, or even a 

 careful study of the material in any large herbarium, 

 will in all probability convince the author that the lower 

 forms of the Basidiomycetes are very plastic, nearly all 

 the simpler genera being superficially mimicked by the 

 unstable species of Tremella and its allies. On the other 

 hand, it is not unusual to find specimens belonging to the 

 simpler genera of the true Basidiomycetes presenting a 

 superficial resemblance to species of Tremella, &c. As 

 examples may be mentioned Corticium arachnoideum, 

 Berk., which is sometimes a typical Corticium with a 

 dense, waxy hymenium ; at others the substance is very 

 loose, dry, and the basidia scattered, when it mimicks 

 Hypochnus ; or again, ConiopJiora ptiieana, Cke., Forma 

 cerebella, Sacc, on account of the Merulius-like hymenium. 

 The author has considered structures worthy of sub- 

 family and generic rank, what others would not consider 

 as entitled to rank as a variety of a species. 



Nevertheless, if all the author's deductions cannot be 

 accepted, we are at the same time greatly indebted for 

 the large amount of additional knowledge, the result of 

 careful and conscientious investigations, carried out under 

 most favourable conditions, pertaining to those primitive 

 forms of the Basidiomycetes, which hitherto had received 

 but scant attention. Geo. Massee. 



