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MICROSCOPIC FUNGI. 
MILDEW AND BRAND. 
BY M. C. COOKE. 
D R. WITHERING^ “ Arrangement of British Plants” in 
1818 reached its sixth edition. This is less than half 
a century ago, and yet the whole number of species of Fungi 
described in that edition was only 564, of which three hundred 
were included under the old genus Agaricus. Less than eighty 
of the more minute species of Fungi, but few of which deserve 
the name of microscopic, were supposed to contain all then 
known of these wonderful organisms. Since that period, 
microscopes have become very different instruments, and one 
result has been the increase of Withering\s 564 species of 
British Fungi to the 3,078 enumerated in the te Index Fungorum 
Britannicorum.” By far the greater number of species thus 
added depend for their specific, and often generic characters, 
upon microscopical examination. The proportion which the 
cryptogamic section bears to the phanerogamic in our local 
Floras before 1818, now almost involuntarily causes a smile. 
Even such authors as were supposed to pay the greatest 
possible respect to the lower orders of plants could never 
present an equal number of pages devoted to them, as to the 
higher orders. Relhan, for instance, only occupies one -fifth 
of his “ Flora Cantabrigiensis,” and Hudson one-fourth of 
his “ Flora Anglica,” with the Cryptogamia. At the present 
time, it will be seen that, with a liberal allowance for “ hair- 
splitting,” the number of British species of flowering plants 
scarcely exceeds two-thirds of the number of Fungi alone, not 
to mention ferns, mosses, algaa, and lichens, and yet we have 
no “ Flora ” which contains them, and but a minority of our 
botanists know anything about them. If we need excuse for 
again directing attention to some of the most interesting of 
one group of these plants, let the above remarks suffice in lieu 
of formal apology. 
Mildew ” is just one of those loose terms which represent 
no definite idea, or a very different one to different individuals. 
Talk of mildew to a farmer, and instantly he scampers mentally 
over his fields of standing corn in search of the brown lines 
