Wf the Lichens and Fungi. 117 



and those of the Salviniacese, ha\ e scarcely any parity of stnic- 

 ture either between themselves or with the foimer. 



Perhaps the study of the Lichens alone may not p roc u-e suffi- 

 cient data for the solution of the question of the nature and phy- 

 siological functions of the spermatia : this doubt has led me 

 to make some researches in the class of Fungi, the results of 

 which, joined to those previously obtained by observations exclu- 

 sively devoted to the Lichens*, indicate, if I am not deceived, that 

 the latter, in spite of the name aerial Alga which has been ap- 

 pHed to them, are connected with the Fungi by an affinity much 

 closer than has been generally believed. 



(Second Part.t) 

 The great resemblance between the spermogonia of the Lichens 

 and the Pyrenomycetes of the genus Sepioria or their allies, leads 

 to the suspicion that these little Fungi are not, as is generally 

 supposed, autonomous productions — that they do not represent, 

 alone, an entire vegetable species ; and since several of these 

 have been described sometimes as Sph(Eria>, sometimes as Sep- 

 toruB, it is probable that they have been observed at different 

 epochs of their development, and that each of these ambiguous 

 Septoria corresponds to a peculiar Spharia or other thecasporous 

 Pyrenomyces, which succeeds it and forms with it but a single 

 species of Fungus. What would be tme of the Sepioria, should 

 extend to a great number of other genera of Pwenomycetes or 

 of Coniomycetes, which in like manner would comprise only the 

 dissociated members of species composed of several terms. This 

 assertion is in fact now borne out by several proofs. 



The Cytispora, which have so much analogy to the Septoria, 

 were called by Tode Spharia drrhiferce, and in the most recent 

 classifications are placed near the Spharia or confounded with 

 them. The reason of this is not to be sought in their organiza- 

 tion, which differs extremely from that of the Spharia, but far 

 rather in that remarkable correspondence, noted by M. Fries, 

 between certain species of these two genera of Fungi. Patient 

 research will show that this correspondence is a much more ge- 

 neral fact than has been imagined, and it sufficiently authorises 

 the belief, that far from being the total expression of a species of 

 Fungus, each of the Cytispores represents merely a particular 

 state of a Fungus which subsequently presents itself under a more 

 perfect form as a true Spharia, or at least as a thecasporous 

 Sphaeriacean. . It will be found that this is the real state of the 



* Vide rinstitut, xviii. anne'e, p. 16; or. Bull, de la Soc. Pliilomatliiquc, 

 1850, p. 26. ^ 



+ Comptes Rendus, March 31, 1851. 



