I'll ALLOtJ ENS. 



Cj 188 I. THALLOGENS. 



• Link i'i /.'.< '. V - III.' ■[ . \ 



Aph.n Bon t Sylt. 1825. A] I. prim. Crypto] 



Ttutflophjrta, Staff. Sen. p. 1. Ampl . /. . 



The whole of the plants stationed in 1 1 1 1 - class remarkable for the 



extreme simplicity of their structure. They have no wood, proper] 

 called, although i:i the case ••!' some »ea-weeds and Fungi they must acquire 

 consider e. Those Bpirally-coated tubes which the old anatomists 



■ I trachea, because of their i try office, are unknown ai 



them, unless occasionally in the form of local cells connected with the 

 organs only; ami consequently upon the surface of even the 

 most ]" rfect of them there is uo Bign of tin- organic apertures in the .-kin 

 called Btomates or breathing-pores. They are mere masses of cells. On 

 their surface nothing i- discoverable whicb can he regarded as ana] 

 leaves; for even in such sea-weeds a- Hypnea, which resemble n 

 appearance, and in Borne of the Lichens which seem leafy, the e 

 symmetry which, without exception, characterises true foliage i- wanting. 

 In i bars alone, which is wholly leafless, >1" we find a symmetrical arra 

 ment even of tie- divisions of the axis. Their mode of reproduction is not 

 by pollen ami ovules, it by sexual apparatus, as it i.- usual to call I 

 parts, of which there is no sign, hut by a special disintegration and solidi- 

 fication of some part of their tissue, .-jioiitaneously effected in various ways 



M 'ding to their kinds. It i- true that such name.- as Antheridia ami 



Pistillidia are met with in the writings of Cryptogamic Beta: m which 



it might he inferred that something analogous at least to sexes was uhservahle 

 among such plant-: but these are theoretical expressions, ami unconni 

 with any proof of the parts t,. which they are applied performing the i 

 ot anthers and pistils. If it should lie assumed, as it lias been by - 

 that they do represent sexual organs, it is in 1., remembered that if 



assumption unsupported by sufficient evidence. Even in I 

 in whose globule some writers have seen a true anther, -o little reason is 

 there to BUppose that it deserves such a name, that, on the central". 

 observer, worthy of credit, assures us that he has seen it grow. Soentirely, 

 in the simplest forms of Thallogens, is all trace i -. that in 



some of them their reproductive matter has been regarded bj certain wi 

 as altogether of an ambiguous nature. In their opinion, it is even ui 

 tain whether this matter will reproduce its like, ami whether it is i 

 mere representation of the vital principle of vegetation, capal 

 called into action either as a Fungus, an Alga, or a Licl 

 the particular conditions of heat, light, moisture, and medium, in which it 

 is placed ; producing Fungi upon dead or putrid organic I bens 



upon livil tables, earth, or stone- ; and ' where I • the 



medium in which it is developed. Kutzing, I - 



endeavours to maintain the following propositions connected with this sub- 

 ject : •• 1-t. the formation of organic matter can only take phv 

 of the previously dissolved elements of other organic princip 1, simple 



globules, such as Cryptococcus, Palmella, and Pn I 

 to different formations according to the influence of light, air, ami temj 



