PART I 

 MYCOLOGY 



CHAPTER I 

 GENERAL STATEMENT AND CLASSIFICATION 



The lower plant organisms which concern the mycologist, or the 

 student of the fungi, may be considered in a general sense, or in a 

 narrow way. A general definition would include all those thallo- 

 phytes, or lower cellular plants (lacking archegonia), which are 

 destitute of chlorophyll and in its absence become dependent, with 

 the exception of the prototrophic bacteria, upon extraneous supplies 

 of organic food, either Hving or dead. This broad definition compels 

 the mycologist to study the slime moulds, the bacteria and the true 

 fungi, both as to their morphology and their physiology. He finds on 

 such study, that broadly speaking, there are similarities of structure 

 and function in both groups of dependent plants, in fact, he finds that 

 the function of these plants is connected with cell organization and 

 structure and vice versa. With this clearly in view, the mycologist 

 finds that he has to deal with three distinct classes of chlorophylless 

 plants, namely: 



Class Myxomycetes (slime moulds). 



Class Schizomycetes (bacteria). 



Class Eumycetes (true fungi). 



The classification of these colorless (chlorophylless) lower plants 

 has been elaborated in recent years with considerable detail by various 

 authors, 30 that the broad fundamental facts both of taxonomy and 

 phylogeny are known fairly well, but much remains to be done along 

 the classificatory fines, especially, since the life histories of many 

 of the bacteria and fungi are incompletely known. It may be 

 many years before a generally acceptable nomenclature and classifi- 

 cation win be an accompHshed fact. The choice of a classification by 

 any worker in mycology depends largely on his training and bias and 

 on his detailed study of the various groups. No two men would 

 entirely agree as to which was the best sequence to adopt in a system- 

 atic treatment of the different forms. The classification adopted in this 



fHOPERTf^UBRARY 

 N. C. State College 



