94 THE HISTORY OF CEEATIOX. 



fungi (forms of Micrococcus, etc.), owe their origin to a 

 number of different archigonic Monera (that is, Monera 

 originating by spontaneous generation). 



In any case the Thread-plants cannot be considered a.s 

 the progenitors of any of the higher vegetable classes. 

 Lichens, as well as fungi, are distinct from the higher 

 plants in the composition of their soft bodies, consisting 

 as it does of a dense felt-work of veiy long, variously 

 interwoven, and peculiar threads or chains of cells — the 

 so-called hyphce, on which account we distinguish them 

 as a province under the name Thread-plants. From 

 their peculiar nature they could not leave any important 

 fossil remains, and consequently we can form only a very 

 vague guess at their palseontological development. 



The first class of Thread-plants, the Fungi, exhibit a 

 very close relationship to the lowest Algse ; the Algo-fungi, 

 or Phycomycetes (the Saprolegnige and Peronosporse) in 

 reahty only dififer from the bladder-wracks and Siphonea? 

 (the Vaucheria and Caulerpa) mentioned previously by the 

 want of leaf-green, or chlorophyll. But, on the other hand, 

 all genuine Fungi have so many peculiarities, and deviate so 

 much from other plants, especially in their mode of taking 

 food, that they might be considered as an entirely distinct 

 province of the vegetable kingdom. 



Other plants live mostly upon inorganic food, upon simple 

 combinations which they render more complicated. They 

 produce protoplasm by the combination of water, carbonic 

 acid, and ammonia. They take in carbonic acid and give 

 out oxygen. But the Fungi, like animals, live upon 

 organic food, consisting of complicated combinations of 

 carbon, which they receive from other organisms and 



