4 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [ JANUARY 
by 
parasitischer Pilzfaden”’ in union with the nostoc. Sachs him- 
self doubtless did not recognize at this time the ‘ Sachverstan- 
digen,’’ whose first prophecy he here expressed, and which, later, 
an exhaustive study was to bring finally to general acceptance. 
This first presentation, however, is of much historical interest, 
inasmuch as it describes for the first time the organic interde- | 
pendence of lichen fungi and alge. Probably it was the fault 
of circumstances that this presentation of Sachs was omitted 
from the ‘“ Register,’ and that this important contribution has 
been so generally overlooked. Even in the work of Reess, in 
which sixteen years later the synthesis between the nostoc of 
Collema and the Collema-hyphe is noted, no mention is made _ 
of the precisely similar observations of Sachs. 
In 1856 Sachs received his degree, and a year later separated 
himself from Purkinje and began to devote himself to the study 
of plant physiology. To obtain means for living, however, 
he continued to devote some attention to drawing and to 
writing. Problems pertaining to seed germination, and the 
earliest development of plant organs, attracted his attention 
before all else, and chief among the work undertaken in this 
first period at Prague was the inauguration of studies upon a 
germination, which even now are having their continuation in 
the latest observations upon metabolism and ‘ Stoff-wande- 
rung.” 
In April of 1859, through the solicitation of the zoologist 
Stein, and upon the recommendation of Hofmeister, Sachs was ae 
called to Tharand as an assistant to Professor A. Stéckhardt. A | 
When Stéckhardt learned from the friends of Sachs of the — 
water-culture experiments which the latter had begun at Prague, — 
he recommended that the scope of the experiment station at 
Tharand be extended so that experimental plant physiology 
might be introduced upon no mean scale, and that the ‘especi- 
ally well qualified Dr. Julius Sachs, of Prague’’ be called to take 
charge of the new department. And so at Tharand, jointly 
with Stéckhardt, Sachs carried out that pioneer work of his | 
upon the nourishment of plants studied by means of water- 
Sa ie) se 
