NATURE OF FUNGI. 15 



It appears to us that a great deal of confusion and a large 

 number of errors which creep into our modern generalizations 

 and hypotheses, may be traced to the acceptance of analogies 

 for identities. How many cases of mistaken identity has the 

 improvement of microscopes revealed during the past quarter 

 of a century. This should at least serve as a caution for the 

 future. 



Apart, however, from the " gonidia," whatever they may be, 

 is the remainder of the lichen a genuine fungus ? Nylander 

 writes, " The anatomical filamentose elements of lichens are 

 distinguished by various characters from the hypha3 of fungi. 

 They are firmer, elastic, and at once present themselves in the 

 texture of lichens. On the other hand, the hyphse of fungi are 

 very soft, they possess a thin wall, and are not at all gelatinous, 

 while they are immediately dissolved by the application of 

 hydrate of potash, &c.* 



Our own experience is somewhat to the effect, that there are 

 some few lichens which are doubtful as to whether they are 

 fungi or 'lichens, but, in by far the majority of cases, there is 

 not the slightest difficulty in determining, from the peculiar 

 firmness and elasticity of the tissues, minute peculiarities which 

 the practised hand can detect rather than describe, and even 

 the general character of the fruit that they differ materially 

 from, though closely allied to fungi. We have only experience 

 to guide us in these matters, but that is something, and we have 

 no experience in fungi of anything like a Cladonia, however 

 much it may resemble a Torrubia or Clavaria. We have Pezizcs 

 with a subiculum in the section Tapesia, but the veriest tyro 

 would not confound them with species of Parmelia. It is true 

 that a great number of lichens, at first sight, and casually,, 

 resemble species of the Hysteriacei, but it is no less strange 

 than true, that lichenologists and mycologists know their own 

 sufficiently not to commit depredations on each other. 



Contributions are daily being made to this controversy, and 

 already the principal arguments on both sides have appeared in 



* "Grevillea," vol. ii. p. 147, in note. 



