MILDEW AND BRAND. 45 



CHAPTER IV. 



MILDEW AND BRAND. 



DR.* WITHERING^S ^^Arrangement of British 

 Plants ^^ in 1818 reached its sixth, edition. This 

 is less than half a century ago^ and yet the whole 

 number of species of Fungi described in that edition 

 was only 564^ of which three hundred were included 

 under the old genus AgaricAis. Less than eighty of 

 the more minute species of Pungi^ but few of which 

 deserve the name of microscopic^ were supposed to 

 contain all then known of these wonderful organ- 

 isms. Since that period^ microscopes have be- 

 come very different instruments^, and one result has 

 been the increase of Withering^s 564 species of 

 British Fungi to the 2_,479 enumerated in the 

 ^^ Index Fungorum Britannicorum.''^ By far the 

 greater number of sj)ecies thus added depend for 

 their specific^ and often generic characters^ upon 

 microscopical examination. The proportion which 

 the cryptogamic section bears to the phanerogamic 

 in our local Floras before 1818^ now almost invol- 

 untarily causes a smile. Even such authors as were 

 supposed to pay the greatest possible respect to the 

 lower orders of plants could never present an equal 

 number of pages devoted to them^ as to the higher 

 orders. Relhan^ for instance^ only occupies one- 



