Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/235

 especially mentioned. But the most important result remains to be told; it is, that the two classes of Algae and Fungi, hitherto kept strictly separate, must obviously be now united, and an entirely new classification adopted, in which Algae and Fungi recur as forms differing only in habit in various divisions founded on their morphology.

A few words must be given here to the Lichens. They are the division of the Thallophytes, whose true nature was last recognised, and that only in modern times; till after 1850 scarcely more was known of their organisation than Wallroth had discovered in 1825, namely, that green cells, known as gonidia are scattered through the fungus-like hyphal tissue of the thallus. After Mohl's investigations in 1833, it was known that free spores were formed in the tubes of the fructifications (apothecia), and that a dust collected from the thallus and consisting of a mixture of gonidia and hyphae was in a condition to propagate the species. The genetic relation between the chlorophyll-containing gonidia and the fungus-like hyphae long continued to be obscure, till at last, after 1868, it was shown that the gonidia are true Algae, and the hyphal tissue a genuine Fungus, and that therefore the Lichens are not a class co-ordinating with the Algae and Fungi, but a division of Ascomycetes, which have this peculiarity, that they spin their threads round the plants on which they feed, and take them up into their tissue. De Bary suggested this explanation, but it was Schwendener who adopted it without reserve and openly declared it, as much to the surprise as the annoyance of Lichenologists. It may be foreseen that their opposition will yield to the weight of facts, which already leave no doubt in the minds of the unprejudiced.

Thus researches in the domain of the Thallophytes have led