110 NOMAD FUNGI. 



Turkey. The scene is uow shifted ; we have to deal with a series of 

 fungi, about whose vegetable nature not even the most ardent 

 zoologist could doubt. But though the interest is different, it is, it 

 appears to me, even greater than before. At least, to one who has 

 not previously studied these leaf-fungi, the search reveals almost as 

 many surprises, as unexpected conclusions, as startling transforma- 

 tions as any other branch of Natural History could furnish. 



Classification of the Group. 



To make the subject of our discussion clear, it will be as well to 

 begin by giving an outline of the classification of this group in the 

 famous Friesian system, which has been hitherto adopted in England. 

 Of Fries's six great classes one is the Coniomycetes, or dust-fiDigi, so 

 called from the fact that the dust-like spores form its principal feature. 

 I have already pointed out on one occasion how artificial this system is 

 in some respects, and described one modification of it — in respect to 

 the Myxomycetes — which it is now undergoing in England. In this 

 much-needed reform English cryptogamists linger, I am sorry to say, 

 far behind their brethren of the Continent. We are now concerned 

 with another reform as pressing, and of course as hesitatingly accepted 

 on this side of the Channel, and it is safe to say that one still more 

 important will have to be made in the not distant future. 



But, though most of these six classes appear to require revision, 

 there is not one which contains such a heterogeneous collection of 

 odds and ends as the Coniomj'cetes. It may truly be said that the 

 only point in which they agree is in the vast predominance of the 

 spores over the other parts of the fungus In any other point of view 

 they are widelj' and irreconcilably unlike. Some produce enormous 

 quantities of minute sperniatiform spores in receptacles, more or less 

 perfectly formed, in or upon dead or dying leaves and stems, or under- 

 neath the bark of twigs and branches, as, e.g., that army of obscure 

 species which form little dark spots on fading leaves, and which are 

 probably all mere phases in the life-history of a so-called higher 

 fungus, known under another name. Others produce their spores 

 freely on the outer surface of dead stalks, bark, and leaves ; such as 

 the common Torula, which — I may be excused for reminding you— 

 has nothing to do with what a mistaken analogy led us former!}' to 

 call the Torula or yeast-plant, and which is now called Saccharomyces. 

 This latter does not belong to the Coniomycetes.* The third and 

 last division — the one with which we have now to deal — grows upon 

 living plants, and includes the majority of those species which are 

 usually known under the name of leaf -fungi. It was divided into 

 three orders — the Pucciniacei, the Caeomacei, and the GEcidiacei; and 

 the following genera : — 



* The group of the Torulacei should be absorbed among the Hj'phoraycetes, 

 into which it passes insensibly. There will then be no Coniomycetes left. 



