174 Journal of Mycology [Vol. 10 
For convenience of reference the accepted name and syn- 
onomy may here be summarized. 
Puccinia sambuci (Schw.) Arthur. Bot. Gaz. 35:15. 
Jan. 1903. 
Aecidium sambuci Schweinitz. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. Phil¬ 
adelphia, 4:294. 1834. 
Puccinia bolleyana Saccardo. Am. Mon. Micr. Jour. 10:1 
(fig.) Aug. 1889. Sylloge Fungorum, 9:303 (descr.) 15 Sept. 
1891. 
Puccinia atkinsoniana Dietel. Bull. Cornell Univ. (Sci¬ 
ence), 3:19. June 1897. 
Puccinia thompsonii Hume. Bot. Gaz. 29:352. May 
1900. 
ELEMENTARY MYCOLOGY. 
(Continued.) 
W. A. KELLERMAN. 
Origin of Living Matter. — The doctrine that individuals 
invariably arise from previously existing organisms was scientifi¬ 
cally established the latter part of the century just closed. It 
had been previously supposed that some of the simple plants 
and animals, even some of the more complex organisms also, 
arose by “spontaneous generation”; i. e. that they were formed, 
often in great abundance, under favorable circumstances, directly 
out of inert or lifeless (mineral) matter. The experiments of 
some investigators seemed to prove the truth of such an hypo¬ 
thesis. But the classic work of Pasteur, and especially the crucial 
experiments of Tyndall, and Huxley, completely demonstrated 
the fallacy of such supposed spontaneous origin. They showed 
that new individuals appeared only when there were present the 
“germs,” ova, spores, or seeds, derived from parent forms. The 
continuity of life is a proposition tenable not only for the existing 
races of plants and animals, but it is in the same manner demon¬ 
strated as well for the entire period of organic existence on our 
globe from early geologic time. Exactly when or how in archaean 
time living organisms began, no definite knowledge is at hand and 
no satisfactory hypothesis has been promulgated. Modern scien¬ 
tific research has clearly indicated that the old view of a radical 
(fundamental) difference between what is termed mineral or 
“inert” matter and organic or so-called “living” matter, is irra¬ 
tional. It is, moreover, highly probable that living matter, that 
is to say, organisms — a common though indefinite synonomous 
term is “life ”—began to exist in an orderly natural way. Neither 
is it a gratuitous assumption, or fallacy, groundless, that organisms 
may have been in existence previous to the time when our globe 
was yet untenable by even the lower plants and animals. The 
