MASSEE ON MUCOR8. 
47 
degenerated so far from the ancestral stock as to have lost the 
power of forming chlorophyll, and in consequence, like the fungi, 
have become parasites, or saprophytes; the bird’s nest orchis, 
Neottia nidus-avis , and toothwort, Lathrcea squamaria, are examples, 
but in most cases these degenerate species still retain the same 
general structure, so that there is but little difficulty in consign- 
ing them to their proper order, although in some instances these 
phanerogamic departures from the typical stock have become so 
modified as to present but slight affinities with any of the normal 
groups, the fungi, in like manner, appear to have descended from 
chlorophyll-producing ancestors, but such ancestors were very much 
lower down, or nearer the starting point of plant life, than flower- 
ing plants, and are represented at the present day by the simple 
green algse, furnished with sexual organs, illustrated by such 
genera as Vaucheria. The Saprolegniece , mostly aquatic fungi, 
and the Peronosporece , inhabiting the tissues of living plants, may 
be considered as illustrations of forms near the starting point of 
the fungi proper, and omitting for the moment the presence of 
chlorophyll in the one case, and its absence in the other, the 
above-mentioned algal and fungal forms present many important 
morphological features in common. In both there is the same long, 
irregularly-branched vegetative portion, in both the tips or inter- 
stitial portions become swollen into a more or less globose re- 
ceptacle or oogonium, the female organ of reproduction, into which 
the protoplasm becomes aggregated and retained by the formation 
of septa across the tube. This oosphere is fertilized by a small 
organ or anther idium produced in close proximity to the oogonium, 
or on a distinct branch, depending on the particular species. It is 
very important to bear in mind that the above account is not 
intended to convey the idea that fungi actually originated from the 
algal genus Vaucheria and allied forms, but simply to show that at 
the points indicated the homologies between algae and fungi are 
very pronounced. 
“ In the degenerate forms of flowering plants, already mentioned, 
we find several distinct starting points, as in Orchidacece , Scrophu- 
lariacect , Balanophorece , etc., and although agreeing in the common 
feature of having the power of developing chlorophyll arrested, yet 
these starting points of new plant ideas must have been separated 
by long intervals of time, 'inasmuch as the aberrant members of 
the two first-mentioned orders would still be typical members of 
their respective orders, if furnished with chlorophyll, whereas, in 
the last order, the species have become so much modified that they 
are not in close touch with any order of chlorophyll-bearing plants, 
a fact implying a long period of time since they broke away from 
their normal ancestors, because it must be remembered that there 
is no evidence in favour of the idea that plants without chlorophyll 
originated as such, whereas the evidence in favour of the idea that 
all plants without chlorophyll have descended from chlorophyll- 
producing ancestors is very strong. 
