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 opposed, inasmuch as it is intimately connected 

 with our subject. 



As recently as 1868, Professor Schwendener first propounded 

 bis views,* and then briefly and vaguely, that all and every 

 individual lichen was but an algal, which had collected about it 

 a parasitic fungal growth, and that those peculiar bodies which, 

 under the name of gonidia, were considered as special organs of 

 lichens, were only imprisoned algaa. In language which the 

 Rev. J. M. Crombie + describes as "pictorial," this author gave 

 the general conclusion at which he had arrived, as follows : — 

 ''As the result of my researches, 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 

 Ascomyeetes, a parasite which is accustomed to live upon the work 

 of others ; its slaves are green algas, 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 that the petals of a leafless parasitic 

 plant 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 

 closely 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 iiber den Flechtenthallus." 

 + Crombie (J. M.) " On the Lichen-Gonidia Question," in "Popular Science 

 Review " for July, 1874. 



