NATURE OF FUNGI. 15 
It appears to us that a great deal of confusion and a large 
number of errors which creep into our modern gencralizations 
and hypotheses, may be traced to the acceptance of analogies 
for identitics. How many cases of mistaken identity has the 
improvenient of microscopes revealed during the past quarter 
of acentury. This should at least serve as a caution for the 
future. 
Apart, however, from the “ gonidia,” whatever they may be, 
is the remainder of the lichen a genuine fungus? Nylander 
writes, ‘The anatomical filamentose elements of lichens are 
distinguished by various characters from the hyphe of fungi. 
They are firmer, elastic, and at once present themselves in the 
texture of lichens. On the other hand, the hyphm of fungi are 
very soft, they possess u thin wall, and are not at all gelatinous, 
while they are -immediatcly disselved by the application. of 
brdrate of potash, &c.* 
Our own experience is somewhat to the effect, that there are 
some few lichens which are doubtful as to whether they are 
fungi or lichens, but, in by far the majority of cascs, there is 
not the slightest difficulty in determining, from the peculiar 
firmness and elasticity of the tissues, minute peculiarities which 
the practised hand can detect rather than describe, and even 
the general character of the fruit that they differ materially 
from, though closely allied to fungi. We have only experience 
to guide us in these matters, but that is something, and we have 
no experience in fungi of anything like a Cladonia, however 
much it may resemble a Torrubia or Clavaria. We have Pezize 
with a subiculum in the section Zapesia, but the veriest tyro 
would not confound them with species of Parmelia. It is true 
that a great number of lichens, at first sight, and casually, 
resemble species of the Hysteriacei, but it is no less strange 
than true, that lichenologists and mycologists know their own 
sufficiently not to commit depredations on each other. 
Contributions are daily being made to this controversy, and 
already the principal arguments on both sides have appeared in 
* “ Grevillea,” vol. ii, p. 147, in note. 
