Chap, v.] the Influence of the Knowledge of Cryptogams. 2 1 1 



notions existed till late into our own century ; about the 

 middle of the 17th century Otto Von Munchausen thought 

 that mushrooms were the habitations of Polypes, and Linnaeus 

 assented to that view. What the nature-philosophers, as \ 

 von Esenbeck for instance, had to say on the nature of Fungi 

 need not be reproduced here. 



Still some useful observations had been accumulating for 

 some time on this subject; as early as 1729 Micheli 1 had 

 collected the spores of numerous Fungi, had sown them and 

 obtained not only mycelia but also sporophores (fructifications), 

 and Gleditsch confirmed these observations in 1753; Jacob 

 Christian SchaefTer 2 about the year 1762 published very good 

 figures of all the Fungi of Bavaria and the Palatinate, and 

 collected the spores of many species. Yet Rudolphi and Link 

 at the beginning of the present century ventured to deny the 

 germination of the spores of Fungi ; Persoon in 18 18 thought 

 that some Fungi grow from spores, others from spontaneous 

 generation. A decided improvement appears after 1820 in 

 the views of botanists with respect to Fungi, and to this 

 Ehrenberg's elaborate essay, ' De Mycetogenesi,' published 

 in that year in the Leopoldina, contributed greatly. In that 

 work he collected together all that was then known on the 

 nature and propagation of the Fungi, and communicated 

 observations of his own on spores and their germination ; 

 he gave figures also of the course of the hyphae in large 

 sporophores and in other parts, but his most important 

 service was a description of the first observed case 'of 



1 Pier' Antonio Micheli, born at Florence in 1679, was Director of the 

 Botanic Garden there, and died in 1737. Johann Jacob Dillen (Dillenius), 



born at Darmstadt in 16S7, was Professor of Botany in Oxford, and died in 

 1 747. These two botanists were the first who submitted the Mosses and the 

 lower Cryptogams to scientific examination, and endeavoured to prove the 

 presence of sexual organs in these plants. 



2 Jacob Christian Schaeffer, born in 1718, was Superintendent in Regens- 

 burg; he died in 1790. 



P 2 



