— 82 — 
Now, up to this time, as all students of Lichens believed in their autonomy, 
one may readily surmise that Schwendener’s advanced theory regarding them 
was likely to cause bitter controversy, and such it did. The systematists, with 
one accord, stood as one man against it. 
Nylandgr, the greatest systematist of his day, came out at once against it, 
and seemed to favor Famintzin and Baranetzky. Krempelhuber, “Geschichte 
der Flechten,” writing of the situation at the close of 1870, does not feel sure 
which theory is correct. He felt much concern that Sachs had sided with 
Schwendener. He feared that he might be promulgating an error and he thought 
that of the two theories Famintzin’s was more plausible, and adds: “Even if 
Schwendener is right, it is questionable if one should classify the Lichens with 
Fungi, to do in other words, what the healthy mind finds unnatural and forced. ” 
In 1874 Bornet, “ Recherches sur les gonidies des lichens,” isolated and de- 
termined specifically the Algae which enter into the composition of a large num- 
ber of Lichens. The situation, however was not materially changed. 
It is interesting, that the systematists, those who really, at any rate from 
their point of view, know the Lichens best of all, have always stood for the auto- 
nomy of Lichens. Nylander never was of any other opinion, and we find him 
writing thus in the preface of his “Les Lichens des Environs de Paris,” 1896: 
“ It is a true saying to-day that the formula ‘Lichens are Fungi living in symbio- 
sis with Algae,’ is an assertion either of pure fantasy or a slander. It is fully 
proven that the Lichens constitute a noble and venerable autonomous class of 
plants having nothing seriously in common either with the Fungi or with the 
Algae. To subordinate the Lichens to the Fungi is even more absurd than to 
reunite the Characeae with the Algae. From the biological point of view the 
Lichens are sufficiently differentiated by the indefinite longevity which charac- 
terizes them. The beautiful specimens of Umbilicaria pustulata in the forest of 
Fontainebleau are probably a little less aged than the rocks upon which they dis- 
play themselves,” and, in a foot-note, “A new argument against the famous for- 
mula above mentioned is given by the volcanic peaks which raise themselves 
from the midst of the ocean, and which one finds covered with Lichens, the only 
plants which form themselves there first, it is the primordial vegetation. It is 
impossible to admit the intervention of a symbiosis whatever, in the multipli- 
cation of the saxicoline Lichens, since Algae and Fungi are absolutely lacking 
under these circumstances.” 
And Korber says: “The hyphae produced by the germination of a Lichen 
spore, must meet with the gonidia specifically belonging to it, that is coming 
from the particular Lichen species, if it is to give rise to a normal thallus. But 
the hyphae and whatever else there is in the Lichen thallus except the gonidia 
do not belong to a Fungus but to the Lichen, and the gonidia which are specifi- 
cally necessary, are no Algae, but free independent Lichen gonidia, which have 
become asynthetic. ” 8 9 
8 DeBary. Comparative Morphology and Biology of the Fungi, Mycetozoa and Bacteria, 
1887, page 418. 
