104. DR LAUDER LINDSAY ON THE SPERMOGONES AND PYCNIDES 
tute a perfect monograph, but simply and humbly as a contribution to a subject 
hitherto unelucidated in this country. I believe, however, this memoir will be 
found to contain first descriptions of no inconsiderable number of the spermogones 
and pycnides of lichens, both British and foreign, as well as many additional in- 
stances of lichens possessing two or three forms of reproductive bodies; or, in 
other words, pycnides as well as spermogones and apothecia. Some of the sper- 
mogones and pycnides, which I believed I had discovered and described for . 
the first time, have subsequently been alluded to in the recent publications of 
Dr Nyztanper of Paris,*—publications which are certainly the most valuable 
contributions made of late years to lichenology,—that most difficult of all 
departments of cryptogamic botany. But these organs are seldom fully described 
by Nytanper, and hence I have every reason to believe that, in these cases 
also, the first full expositions of their structure will be found in the following 
Memoir. 
Spermogonological investigations are surrounded by many and serious diffi- 
culties; and it is perhaps but justice to those botanists who have hitherto avoided 
the study of the reproductive organs of lichens here to state what some of these 
difficulties or obstacles are. Prior to the introduction of the microscope bodies 
so minute as spermogones and spermatia could not possibly have been properly 
studied. But even at the present day, when microscopes abound, it is to be 
feared that few of our best lichenologists are well versed in histology and the use 
of the microscope. It can scarcely be denied, further, that many botanists have 
been too much mere classificators or name-givers: they have devoted attention 
too exclusively to the discrimination of species and varieties, to the neglect of 
minute anatomy and physiology, as studied by the aid of microscopy and che- 
mistry. Continental botanists are infinitely before us in the latter respect: we can 
show little or nothing in botanical microscopy comparable with the productions 
of the French school of observers, as published in the “ Annales des Sciences 
Naturelles,’ or to those of the German school, as given in the “Botanische 
Zeitung.’ But the possession of a good microscope, facility in microscopical 
manipulation, and a familiarity with the general principles or facts of physio- 
logical botany, are not the only requisites or qualifications for investigations in 
spermogonology. The observer must be possessed of unwearied patience and 
perseverance : he must expect to meet, and he must bring to his task a determi- 
nation to surmount and conquer, endless difficulties and disappointments. I have 
now examined carefully, under the microscope, as I have already stated, many 
* 1, Synopsis Methodica Lichenum omnium hucusque cognitorum. Paris, 1858. 
2,. Enumeration Générale des Lichens, avec J’indication sommaire de leur Distribution Géo- 
graphique. Cherbourg, 1858. 
8. Monographia Calicieorum. 1857. 
4, Prodromus Lichenographie Galliz et Algerie. Bourdeaux, 1857. 
5. Essai @’une Nouvelle Classification des Lichens. Cherbourg, 1854. 
