74 Mi; THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 
NOTES ON FUNGI. 
Taed 
fire by Hdwin Cheel). 
Tur study of the vegetable features of most countries usually 
commences with the conspicuous trees, shrubs, or the more 
showy herbaceous flowering plants and also the ferns, while 
the lower forms of plant life (with, perhaps, the exception Ota 
a few forms of Agarics or the bracket-like Polyporaceous: 
species) are very often quite overlooked except by a very few 
specialists. It is not generally known, even by many of our 
botanists, that the few Crypogamic specialists, have, by their 
persistent labours been the means of bringing under notice 
in our scientific journals, no less than 49,000 species of fungi 
from various parts of the world, including the Schizomycetes, 
Myzxomycetes, and the Lichen-forming fung. The latter be- 
long to the Ascomyceteae group of the Cryptogamic division 
of the vegetable kingdom. 
A great many species of fungi are of immense economic 
importance inasmuch as a large number may be used as food, 
while others are deadly poisonous, not only to human beings, 
but also to the lower animals; some do immense damage, and 
cause great monetary loss by attacking wheat, oats, and other 
commercial crops. In ancient times many of the diseases pe- 
culiar to higher plant-life and which are now known to belong 
to certain well-known groups of the vegetable kingdom, were 
referred to by such terms as “‘blight,’’ “‘blasting’’ or ‘“mil- 
dewing’’ of the corn when seen in the wheat-fields, and a 
Yarge number of the old farmers were under the impression 
that the diseases were caused through electrical disturbances. . 
Even in 1833, Turpin and Unger, who were among the first 
to understand the symptoms of diseases of plants, thought that 
many of them were caused through the transformation of the- 
cell-contents of the plants upon which they grow. Meyen, 
Kuhn, and Berkeley did good work towards clearing up the. 
mystery of this branch of vegetable pathology, and in 1866 
the foundation of our modern knowledge was laid by Pro- 
fessor De Bary. ' 
ScutzomyceTEs.—This is a group of organisms known as. 
Fission-Fungi or Bacteria. They are very simple in struc- 
ture and are either unicellular or filamentous. Some of the 
single-celled forms are rounded while others are rod-shaped. 
The Bacteriaceae is represented by upwards of 70 species and 
several of these are the cause of deadly diseases such as ty- 
phoid fever, pneumonia, cholera, diphtheria, and so-called 
white plague or consumption. Some of these minute 
organisms are the cause of the disease known as Apple or- 
Pear Blight (also known as Fire Blight). These bacteria gain 
