FUNGI. 285 
loss ; that there is no such thing as death, the ex- 
tinction of one form of existence being only the 
birth of another, each grave being a cradle. 
In the previous chapters I have incidentally al- 
luded to the relation of fungi to algze and lichens. 
Mr. Sorby has shown by his chromatological re- 
searches that their most common colouring matters 
exactly correspond with those found in the apo- 
thecia of lichens, and also that their more 
accidental constituents are quite analogous to 
those occasionally found in the fructification of ° 
particular lichens such as the cup-mosses. He 
considers that they bear something like the same 
relation to lichens that the petals of a leafless para- 
sitic plant would bear to the foliage of one of a 
normal character ; that is to say, that they are the 
coloured organs of reproduction of parasitic plants 
of a type closely approaching that of lichens. In 
appearance and mode of decay fungi resemble the 
curious parasitic Rhizanths,—a low class of flower- 
ing plants intermediate between Thallogens and 
Endogens, of which the Raflesta Arnoldii of Java is 
an extraordinary example, composed chiefly of cel- 
lular tissue, whose seeds closely resemble spores, 
and which are never green, but assume a brown, 
yellow, or purple colour. The Cynomonium cocct- 
neum of Malta, long celebrated for averting hemor- 
rhage, was called Fungus Melitensis from this 
