THE REPRODUCTION OF ASCOMYCETES. 
143 
that the spermatia act just as the immovable antherozoids of the 
Florideas. 
If it is really the case, the role of the fecundatoiy organs, such 
as we conceive them at the present time, according to the works of 
MM. de Bary, Woronin, and Tulasne, would be profoundly 
modified ; the formation of the thecas would have consequently, 
may be from a conjugation, may be from the action of fecunda- 
tory bodies, as in the Saprolegnice, as I have shown, but it is 
necessary yet to obtain confirmation of these observations, which 
M. Stahl will, in all probability, make known to us. 
PROFESSOR GUISEPPE DE NOTARIS. 
Guiseppe De Notaris was born on the 5th of April, 1805, at 
Milan, of a noble but impoverished Italian family. He became a 
student of medicine in the University of Padua, where he obtained 
his degree in 1830, and practised for a short time in the hospitals 
at Milan. But his bent towards botanical studies had displayed 
itself even when a student, and in 1832 he received his first 
appointment as Assistant-Professor of Natural History to the 
Lyceum of St. Alexander in that city. After receiving several 
minor appointments, he was, in 1839, located at Genoa as Pro- 
fessor of Botany to the University ; and in that town he resided 
for thirty-four years. During the whole of this time, while re- 
ceiving honourable distinctions from almost every scientific society 
in Europe (culminating in the foreign membership of the Linnean 
Society of London in 1872), he obtained but little recognition 
from his own Government, and was in constant pecuniary straits 
which were perpetually interfering with the publication of his valu- 
able botanical works. Indeed, at one time, but for the encourage- 
ment and assistance of a private friend, he would have abandoned a 
scientific career in despair. In 1867 he was offered, but declined, 
the chair of botany in the University of Turin ; but in 1872 
accepted the same post in the University of Rome. There he 
died on the 22nd of January of the present year, at the age of 72. 
De Notaris’s publications extend over almost every department 
of Botany ; and it is only possible to refer to the most important, 
all of which belong to Cryptogamy. In Bryology, his first work 
(and the earliest of all his publications) w^as his “ Synopsis Mus- 
corum Mediolanensium,” published in 1834. This was followed 
the next year by his “ Pugillus Muscorum Italias novorum vel 
minus cognitorum,” and, in 1837, by his Specimen de Tortulis 
Italicis,” a most important work in establishing the principles of 
bryological taxonomy. In 1838 he published his “ Sylloge Mus- 
corum Italige and in 1859 his great work “ Musci Italici,” which 
would long before have seen the light but for his want of means. 
His ‘‘ Epilogo della Briologia Italian a,” published to its immortal 
