OF FILAMENTOUS, FRUTICULOSE, AND FOLIACEOUS LICHENS. 103 
tioned. French species I have studied in NyLanper’s Herbarium Lichenum 
Parisiensium (Fasc. 1-3, 150 specimens. Paris, 1855). I have also to thank 
Dr Hooker for a valuable suite of his antarctic gatherings during the survey- 
ing voyage of the “Erebus and Terror,” embracing specimens from the Falk- 
land Islands, Auckland Islands, Cape Horn, and New Zealand; Dr A. O. Broprr 
for specimens from North America, and Mr Deieuton for speciniens from Cali- 
fornia. Most of the lichens above enumerated included separate fragments or 
duplicates ; so that in all I must have submitted to careful microscopical examin- 
ation—as the basis of the following memoir—many thousand specimens, from 
every variety of clime, country,-and habitat, and in every conceivable state or 
form. The number of species or specimens cannot be estimated by the number 
enumerated in the body of the Memoir ; the latter only shows the specimens in 
which spermogones were distinctly found by me, and furnishes no indication of 
the far larger number examined with equal care, and at the expense of similar 
time and labour, in which negative results were obtained. 
Hitherto, so far as I am aware, no researches have been made, or at least 
published, in this country with a view to expound the minute anatomy and 
physiology of the spermogones of lichens, if we except a couple of papers pub- 
lished by myself in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science.* Nor do I 
know of any monograph in any language or in any country devoted to this sub- 
ject. Much has certainly been done by Tunasne,+ in his elaborate and valuable 
**Memoir on the Natural History of the Lichens,’—a memoir to which I owe many 
and deep obligations. To him I conceive we are indebted for having placed 
spermogonology on a scientific basis, and by so doing for having raised the lichens, 
in regard to their anatomy and physiology, at least to equal rank with other 
cryptogamic families. To a German,{ moreover (Irzicsoun), is due the credit 
of the discovery of the existence of spermogones in lichens, or at least of an ap- 
proximation to the first scientific appreciation of their character and functions. 
Though my own researches were commenced several years ago, I have not hitherto 
ventured to lay them before the public for a variety of reasons. One of the chief 
of these was my anxiety to correct or confirm my earlier investigations by more 
extended observation, especially among foreign specimens of British species ; and 
this I have not had a satisfactory opportunity of doing until last summer at Kew. 
I lay them now before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, not as claiming to consti- 
* 1. Monograph of the Genus Abrothallus. (De Not. and Tul, emend.) Read before 
Section D. of the meeting of the British Association at Cheltenham in August 1856.—Quarterly 
Journal of Microscopical Science. January 1857. 
2. On the Structure of Lecidea lugubris, Sommfr. Ibid. July 1857. 
{ Mémoire pour servir 4 Histoire Organographique et Physiologique des Lichens. Par M. L. 
R. Tulasne, aide-Naturaliste au Museum d’ Histoire Naturelle, &c.— Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 
3d serie. Botanique, vol. xvii., 1852. 
{ Dr Hermann Irzicsoun, whose researches may be found in the Botanische Zeitung for 
1850-51, et seq. 
