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Some Remarks occasioned by the preceding Paper, addressed to the R. S. by Mr. 

 fVm. Watson, Apothecary, F. R. S. N°471, p. 599. 



Without derogating from Mr. Pickering's merit, Mr, Watson observes that 

 it was to the late Sig. Micheli, professor of botany at Florence, that the world 

 owes the first discovery of the seeds of mushrooms, as well as the flowers and 

 seeds of the various species of lichen or liverwort : he not only saw with his 

 glasses, but raised from their seeds, many kinds of mushrooms, as may be 

 seen by his experiments in p. 135 of his excellent work, entitled Nova Planta- 

 rum Genera, printed at Florence in the year 1729. He constantly observed 

 the seeds produce the same species, as in the more perfect plants. 



A very worthy and learned member of this society. Dr. Haller, professor of 

 physic, botany, &c. in the university of Gottingen, in his excellent work pub- 

 Hshed last year, entitled Enumeratio Methodica Stirpium Helvetiae, tells us, 

 when treating of funguses, p. 34, that their seeds are produced in the laminae 

 of their concave side; as he has most evidently seen in the 35th, 50th, 73d, 

 and 107th species mentioned in his work ; which seeds are by nature, when 

 ripe, shaken from the plants, and, being sown, propagate their species. He 

 likewise mentions, that the seeds of different mushrooms vary in their colour, 

 some being blue, others green, white, &c. 



The late Mr. Ray indeed mentions a fungus, discovered by his friend Mr. 

 Doody, which he calls, in his history of plants, vol. 3, p. 21, fungus seminifer 

 externe striatus ; and M. Tournefort, in his Institutiones Rei Herbariae, p. 56o, 

 takes notice of another species of this tribe, which he calls fungoides infundi 

 buli-forme semine faetum. M, Vaillant, in p. 57 of his Botanicum Parisiense, 

 gives a description and figures of the seeds of these two kinds. His words are 

 to this purport, when translated from the French : " Within the cavity," says 

 he, " of these plants, towards the bottom, are contained many seeds heaped 

 one upon another, cut on their superior surface somewhat like a triangle, broad 

 underneath, where they are connected to a little tendon, and are whitish." 

 Notwithstanding the high veneration he had for the opinions of these able bo- 

 tanists, he was satisfied the parts of these two plants, so imagined, are not 

 their seeds, but rather their suckers, stolones ; which, in most others of this 

 tribe, are produced from the root ; but from both these, as in many of the 

 kinds of lichen, and in the dentaria bulbifera, are produced from other parts of 

 the plant. Mr. W. observes, that in almost all plants, whose seeds are pro- 

 duced sparingly, or are difficult to be saved, Nature abundantly makes up that 

 deficiency, by the great increase of their roots, by which their species may 

 easily be propagated ; as is manifest in mushrooms, potatoes, crocuses, golden- 



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