— 8o — 
from both they are distinguished by the presence of gonidia, as an essential ele- 
ment of their thallus. ” 
The last statement gives us a pretty good idea of the notion as to what Lichens 
really were about the time when Schwendener presented his important discovery. 
At this time, all lichenists believed Lichens to be autonomous, co-equal in rank 
with Algae and Fungi. The gonidia, they believed, were peculiar cells formed 
right in the thallus of the Lichen. Schwendener, too, at first, firmly believed 
this; so we find him making the following statement in one of his “Untersuch- 
ungen fiber den Flechtenthallus; ” 7 “The green cells or gonidia are, as all know, 
lateral formations of the hyphae, and as such are analagous to branches. Like 
the latter, .... they never develop from apical cells, and in their early de- 
velopment can not be distinguished from them. The difference between the 
two shoots, however, soon becomes notic.able. While the branch by repeated 
division of cells, grows indefinitely in length, we find that in the formation of a 
gonidium, that the rule is, that the first cell divides once only, so that the branch 
becomes only two-celled. The apical cell now swells out spherically and becomes 
a gonidium, whilst the basal cell, does not change and becomes a sometimes longer 
sometimes shorter stalk. (Plate, i, Fig, 18.) ” In a foot-note Schwendener adds: 
“That the gonidia develop from hyphae cells is a fact already discovered by 
Bayrhoffer and verified by Speerschneider and others. There really is no diffi- 
culty in convincing one’s self through one’s own investigations that they (the 
gonidia) are connected by short stalks to the hyphae.” After describing how 
to proceed to see this, he adds: “ Most of the gonidia, of course, will be torn loose, 
nevertheless, some will be found, here and there, that will still be found in their 
original relationship with the hyphae. ” On page 126, he says: “Of especial im- 
portance to the plant is the multiplication of the gonidia, which occurs through 
division. The first plane of division, through which the spherical cell is divided 
into two hemispheres, lies in a plane passing through the point of attachment 
and the center of the green cell, in such a way that the stalk cell remains in con- 
nection with the two daughter cells.” 
This goes to show that Schwendener, at this time, was a firm believer in the 
prevailing notions regarding Lichens, and far behind DeBary, whom he soon 
was destined to outstrip. 
It was DeBary who first hinted at the true nature of Lichens. In his “Mor- 
phology and Physiology of the Fungi, Lichens and Myxomycetes, ” he expresses 
the belief that some of the gelatinous Lichens (Collemaceae ) , were “either mature 
states of those plants, whose immature states are recognized as forms of Nostoc, 
Chrodcoccus, etc., or that these organisms are true Algae, attacked by some Asco- 
mycetes, whose hyphae penetrate the Algae, and form the lichen-thallus. ” 
In 1867 (published 1868), Schwendener expresses himself as of the same 
opinion as DeBary regarding the gelatinous Lichens. In the same paper, he fur- 
ther asks the question — if the gonidia of all Lichens are not Algae, and the hy- 
phae, Fungus-hyphae. Schwendener ’s further investigations soon convinced 
7 Nageli. Beitrage II, p. 125. 
