10 FUNGI. 
was proposed to unite them in one alliance, under the name of 
Mycetales, in the same manner as the late Dr. Lindley had united 
allied orders under alliances in his “ Vegetable Kingdom ;”’ but, 
beyond this, there was no predisposition towards the theory 
since propounded, and which, like all new theories, has collected 
a small but zealous circle of adherents. It will be necessary 
briefly to summarize this theory and the arguments by which it 
is supported and opposcd, inasmuch as it is intimately connected 
with our subject. 
As recently as 1868, Professor Schwendener first propounded 
his views,* and then briefly and vaguely, that all and every 
individual lichen was but an algal, which had collected about it 
@ parasitic fungal growth, and that those peculiar bodies which, 
under the name of gonidia, were considered as special organs of 
lichens, were only imprisoned alew. In language which the 
Rev. J. M. Crombie + describes as “ pictorial,” this author gave 
the genezal conclusion at which he had arrived, as follows :— 
“ As the result of my reseirches, all these growths are not simple 
plants, not individuals in the usual sense of the term; they 
are rather colonies, which consist of hundreds and thousands 
of individuals, of which, however, only one acts as master, while 
the others, in perpetual captivity, provide nourishment for them- 
selves and their master. This master is a fungus of the order 
Ascomycetes, a parasite which is accustomed to live upon the work 
of others; its slaves are green alge, which it has sought out, or 
indeed caught hold of, and forced into its service. It : surrounds 
whereas in the case of lichens the apothecia contain very little, if any, of those 
substances, but a large amount of the lichenoxanthines so characteristic of the 
class. Looking upon fungi from this chromatological point of view, they bear 
something like the same relation to lichens tht the peta!s of a leafless parasitic 
pk: ant would bear to the foliage of one of normal character—that is to say, they 
are, as it were, the coloured organs of reproduction of parasitic plants of a type 
elosely approaching that of lichens, which, of course, is in very close, if not in 
absolute agreement with the conclusions drawn by botanists from entirely 
different data.” 
* Schwendener, ‘! ‘Untersuchungen tiber den Flechtenthallus.” 
+ Crombie (J...M.) ‘On the Lichen- -Gonidia Question,” in ‘‘ Popular Science 
Review” for July, 1874. 
