NATURE OF FUNGI. 9 
as to name a flowering plant from a stray fragment of a root- 
fibril accidentally cast out of the ground—nay, even worse, for 
identification would probably be easier. It is well to protest 
at all times against attempts to push science to the verge of 
absurdity ; and such must be the verdict upon endeavours to 
determine positively such incomplete organisms as floating cells, 
or hyaline threads which may belong to any one of fifty species 
of moulds, or after all to an alga. This leads us to remark, in 
passing, that there are forms and conditions under which fungi 
may be found when, fructification being absent—that is, the 
vegetative system alone developed—they approximate so closely 
to alge that it is almost impossible to say to which group the 
organisms belong. 
Finally, it is a great characteristic of fungi in general that 
they are very rapid in growth, and rapid in decay. Ina night 
a puffball will grow prodigiously, and in the same short period 
a mass of paste may be covered with mould. In a few hours a 
gelatinous mass of Iteticularia will pass into a bladder of dust, 
or a Coprinus will be dripping into decay. Remembering this, 
mycophagists will take note that a fleshy fungus which may be 
good eating at noon may undergo such changes in a few hours 
as to be anything but good eating at night. Many instances 
have been recorded of the rapidity of growth in fungi; it may 
also be accepted as an axiom that they are, in many instances, 
equally as rapid in decay. 
The affinity between lichens and fungi has long been re- 
cognized to its full and legitimate extent by lichenologists and 
mycologists.* In the “ Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany,” it 
* On the relation or connection between fungi and lichens, H. C. Sorby 
has some pertinent remarks in his communication to the Royal Society on 
‘‘Comparative Vegetable Chromatelogy” (Proceedings Royal Society, vol. xxi. 
1873, p. 479), as one result of his spectroscopic examinations. He says, 
**Such being the relations between the organs of reproduction and the foliage, 
it is to some extent possible to understand the connection between parasitic 
plants like fungi, which do not derive their support from the constructive 
energy of their fronds, and those which are self-supporting and posscss true 
fronds. In the highest classes of plants the flowers are connected with the 
leaves, more especially by means of xanthophyll and yellow xanthophyll, 
2 
