106 DR LAUDER LINDSAY ON THE SPERMOGONES AND PYCNIDES 
rightly to refer those spermogones and pycnides which I did not find associated 
with apothecia. This, however, can only be done by examining a larger number 
of specimens from different habitats and countries than I have been able to collect 
or had leisure to study. I offerthe present results of my studies merely as a preli- 
minary contribution to lichenological literature, and all that I can venture to hope 
is, that they may be found useful as a basis for the investigations of those who 
follow me with ampler means and opportunities of research. It sometimes happens 
that different specimens of the same lichen from different habitats or countries 
appear to possess several sorts of spermogones and pycnides; or, associated with 
a particular species, may be found a considerable variety of these organs. Proba- 
bly, in the majority of cases, such spermogones and pycnides are really referable 
to different lichens, and not to the single species to which they apparently belong. 
But I think there is strong ground for believing that some of the lower lichens are 
possessed of several forms of reproductive bodies and organs, just as certain of 
the lower fungi are; at least I have repeatedly met with phenomena which are 
inexplicable on any other supposition. We now know that the genus Hrysiphe, 
belonging to the fungi, has no less than five forms of reproductive bodies or organs ; 
and I have met with many lichens which possess either simply, both spermogones 
and pycnides, in addition to apothecia, that is, three different forms of reproduc- 
tive organs, or two or more different forms of spermogones or of pycnides as the 
case may be. Hitherto it has been customary to refer all such secondary forms 
of reproductive organs in lichens, when they were observed at all, to parasitic 
fungi. But this arose from ignorance of the fact that lichens possess other repro- 
ductive organs than apothecia. In investigations on the border ground between 
the lichens and the fungi, there are at present almost insurmountable difficulties. 
Many of the organisms which we at present regard as the pycnides of lichens 
may, in the course of subsequent researches, prove to be, or to belong to, fungi; 
while, on the other hand, the corresponding organs of certain fungi, or certain 
fungi themselves, may prove to be really the accessory reproductive organs of 
lichens. The boundary line between the lichens and the fungi is for ever shift- 
ing; and it is perhaps at present impossible to fix or determine it. Mycologists 
and lichenologists alike have given it up as a hopeless task. The old distinc- 
tion as to the habitat,—lichens being supposed to grow always on diving, and 
fungi on dead tissues—is utterly absurd. Until lately, it was thought that che- 
mistry had furnished a means of distinguishing these two important cryptogamic 
families in the presence or absence of starchy matter in the hymenial and other 
tissues, which in lichens, as a general rule, strike a blue colour with iodine, while 
in fungi they do not. But Mr Freperick Currey has pointed out that this reac- 
tion frequently occurs also in undoubted fungi. Between the higher fungi and 
the higher lichens the distinction is obvious enough; but between the lower 
eroups of each family the difference gradually becomes imperceptible, until it is 
