ON THE SEXUALITY OF THE FUNGI. 



By H. Marshall Ward, M.A., Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge; 

 Assistant Lecturer in Botany at the Owens College, Manchester. 



The fruitfulness and stimulus of the theory of descent have pro- 

 bably been felt in no province of biology with more effect than in the 

 investigation of the more minute forms of plants ; and the results 

 obtained from the study of microscopic fungi have absorbed attention 

 and interest of late years to an extent which, whether commensurate 

 or not with their importance, promises even more in the future than 

 has been attained in the past. 



Not only with respect to the economic aspect of a thorough know- 

 ledge of Fungi inimical to the animal and vegetable world, but also 

 as regards the real position of these remarkable organisms in nature, 

 it is of the greatest importance that investigations should proceed and 

 multiply. For we have learned in this as in other departments of 

 science, that the results of thorough and accurate knowledge cannot 

 really be foreseen, and that new side lights are thrown on other mat- 

 ters by every acquisition of facts and principles. 



Apart from their interests more directly affecting mankind, the 

 fungi have seemed to present problems of life in some respects simpler 

 than other forms, and have thus in a manner promised a solution of 

 phylogenetic and physiological questions more nearly approaching the 

 ideal of the evolutionist. As research progressed, however, and the 

 methods of observation were improved, experience showed that the 

 study of the Fungi — though yielding results much beyond rather 



