116 DIVISION I.—GENERAL MORPHOLOGY. 
especially described them in 1794 in Peziza, Helvella, Morchella, Ascobolus, Sphaeria, and 
Geoglossum in his epoch-making attempt at a classification of the mushrooms in 
Römer’s Neues ‚Magazin f. Bot., I, p. 62. Persoon’s Icon. et descr. Fungorum, I 
(1798), pp. 6, 25, should also be consulted; also J. Hedwig, Theor. generat. et fructif. 
plant. Cryptog., Ed. 2 (1798), and from among later writers Ditmar in Sturm’s Deutschl. 
Fl. III, 1, &c. Many of the accounts of these older authors are reproduced in 
Nees v. Esenbeck’s System der Pilze und Schwämme, Würzburg, 1817. 
The discovery of the asci in a large number of Fungi led first of all to the mistaken 
assumption that all the higher mushrooms, and especially Hymenomycetes, are 
furnished with similar organs. This view is expressed from the time of Persoon’s 
attempt above mentioned, and especially of Link’s Observationes in Ord. plant. naturales, 
1 (Magazin d. Ges. naturf. Freunde, Berlin, 1809), down to modern times (Fries, Syst. 
Mycolog.; Epicrisis Syst. Mycolog.), and it is even represented, though somewhat ob- 
scurely, in figures (Nees, Syst. d. P.). Further historical details will be found in the 
writings of Berkeley, Phoebus, and Léveillé, which are cited below. 
Vittadini, Monogr. Tuberacearum, discovered in 1831 or rediscovered the basidia of 
Boletus and Hymenogaster, but it was not till after the appearance of the classical 
and contemporary works of Léveillé, Recherches sur ’Hymenium des Champignons, 
(Ann. d. sc. nat. ser. 2, VIII, 1837), and Berkeley, On the fructification of Hyme- 
nomycetous Fungi (Ann. of Nat. Hist. I (1838), p. 80), that they became more 
generally known and more carefully studied, especially in the Hymenomycetes. 
Others obtained independent results which agreed with those of Léveillé and Berkeley, 
but were not published for some time after; as— 
ASCHERSON, in Wiegmann’s Archiv, 1838, and Froriep’s Notizen, Band 50. 
PHOEBUS, Ueber d. Keimkérnerapparat. d. Agaricinen u. Helvellaceen (Nov. Act. 
Acad. Nat. Curios. XIX, II), (1842). 
CorDA, Icon. Fung. III, p. 40 (1839), in which Corda’s earlier observations are 
noticed. 
Berkeley and Tulasne were the first who supplied more exact information with respect 
to the basidia of the Gastromycetes (see end of section XCIV), and Tulasne more 
recently with respect to those of the Tremellineae in Ann. d. sc. nat. sér. 3, XIX. 
Among later investigators of basidia J. Schmitz should be mentioned, Ueber The- 
lephora hirsuta, &c. in Linnaea, Bd. 17 (1843). 
The asci were simultaneously examined by Léveillé and Phoebus (l. c.), but without 
adding anything very important to the results of previous observers. 
In the more simple Fungi, the Hyphomycetes, Micheli (N. gen. t. 94) represents the 
acrogenously formed spores of Botrytis and Aspergillus as placed on the extremities of 
the hyphae. Succeeding writers for some time either gave similar accounts or were 
unable to satisfy themselves with regard to the origin or insertion of the spores. Corda 
in his later writings, Fresenius (Beitr.) and Bonorden (Allgemeine Mycologie) were 
the first to throw mere light on the questions relating to the origin of the spores. 
The reader is referred to their works and to the descriptive literature; no distinct 
epoch marks the advance in our knowledge of these questions. 
As regards more delicate questions of histology and development which have only 
recently been brought within reach of examination, I was myself the first to make 
more exact researches into the development of spores in asci in my work Ueber 
die Fruchtentwickelung der Ascomyceten, Leipzig, 1863, after various previous writers 
had prepared the way for more precise enquiries, such were— 
NÄGELI in Linnaea XVI, p. 257 ;—Id. in Zeitschrift f. wiss. Bot. Heft. I, p. 45, Heft 
III and IV, p. 23. 
SCHLEIDEN, Grundziige, Aufl. 3, II, p. 45. 
CORDA, Icon. fung. III, 38, V, 66, 74, 80. 
FRESENIUS in Flora, 1847, p. 11. 
