LICHENS AND FUNGI OF OTAGO, NEW ZEALAND. 435 



heterogeneous assemblage of genera (such as Microthelia, Celidium, and Phyma- 

 topsis) * of very varied character. 



Nor are these genera themselves satisfactorily or perfectly denned —consisting 

 of an equally heterogeneous collection of species of diverse character — species 

 which improvement in our knowledge regarding them will probably, in course of 

 time, lead us to draft off for the most part to existing genera of Lichens or Fungi, 

 though a minority may become the basis of really new, separate, and properly 

 definable genera, whether of Lichens, Fungi, or Fungo-Lichenes. The genera Mi- 

 crothelia, Celidium, and Phymatopsis are here then regarded and adopted — as the 

 group to which they have been here referred is also — simply as provisional ; an 

 adoption, however, which is convenient, if not necessary, for reference, and for the 

 facilitation of their further study. The genera referred to agree with those lower 

 Fungi, which are possessed of several forms of fructification, in rarely, if ever, 

 exhibiting all these forms contemporaneously in the same specimen or locality, 

 or it may be, country. I am not aware at present of any instance of complete or 

 perfect fructification — that is, the co-existence of apothecia and spermogones or 

 pycnides — in a given specimen in any given species. Usually fructification, where 

 it occurs, is imperfect, only one form of the reproductive organs occurring (as 

 the sporiferous perithecia in Microthelia). Frequently (in Celidium and Phyma- 

 topsis) there is no normal fructification at all ; neither spores, spermatia, nor 

 stylospores can be distinguished by repeated and careful examination — the plant 

 existing only in a sterile or degenerate, rudimentary or protothalline condition — the 

 dark-brown irregular and indistinct cellular tissue of the maculae or wartlets 

 furnishing no clue to the Order even to which the plant belongs. From these 

 circumstances, it happens that an observer may examine— as I have done — in the 

 long course of years, many thousand Lichens from every part of the known world, 

 before he finds a fertile condition of some of these parasites, that is, their apo- 

 thecia, spermogones, or pycnides ; before he is in a position, therefore, to venture 

 to assign the sterile Fungiform Maculae, so familiar to him, to their proper Natural 

 Order, family, genus, or species. In plants of such a character there cannot fail to 

 be extreme difficulty— frequently for the time, and for years insuperable— in tracing 

 the connection of the several forms of fructification, or their relation to a common 

 species ; and it is not surprising, considering the nature of the material, that 

 errors should and must continue to occur in the assignation of names and 

 affinities. Though the connecting links may appear to have been discovered, it 

 may, and probably will, in a certain proportion of cases, prove, in course of time, 



* The same genera are classed as " Pseudo- Lichen es" by Krempelhuber (" Die Lichenen-Flora 

 Bayerns," 1859, p. 275); and by Anzi, Celidium and Abrothallus are included among " Genera inter 

 Lichenes et Fungos incedentia;" while Microthelia is placed among the Verrucarioe ("Catalogus 

 Lichenum quos in Provincia Sondriensi et circa Novum-Comura collegit" Martin Anzi, 1860; 

 Como : Introduction, xvi.) 



VOL. XXIV. PART IT. 6 B 



