THE ANNALS AND MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY, " per litora spargite museum, Naiades, et circilm vitreos considite fontes : PoUice virgineo teneros hie carpite flores : Iloribus et pictum, divae, replete canistrum. At vos, o NymphjB Craterides, ite sub undas ; Ite, recurvato variata corallia trunco Vellite muscosis e rupibus, et mihi conchas Ferte, Deaepelagi, et pingui conchylia succo." Parthenii Ec\. 1. No. 55. MARCH 1842. I. — Organographic and Physiologic Sketch of the Class Fungi, by C. MoNTAGNE, D.M. Extracted from ^ Histoire phy-sique, politique et naturelle de Pile deCuba/ par M. Ramon DE LA Sagra, and translated and illustrated with short notes by the Rev. M.J. Berkeley, M.A., F.L.S. The class Fungi is without doubt one of the largest of the vegetable kingdom, and the study of the productions of which it is composed is one of the most difficult in botany, whether on account of the infinitely varied forms and disguises which they assume, their small size requiring the aid of the micro-scope, or their obscure place of growth. Neglected by the older botanists. Fungi began to attract attention only towards the commencement of the last century. It is to the immortal Micheli that we owe the first just notions upon these vegetables ; it is he who first made known the sporidia of Agarics, of which some modern mycologists claim the discovery, and those other organs which many, even at the present time, regard with BuUiard as real anthers, but to which he assigned other functions. For him again was reserved the honour of placing beyond doubt the reproduc-tion of these plants by seeds or sporidia, which the greater number of botanists before his days believed to be the result of the decomposition of organized bodies, or of a spontaneous or equivocal generation. Gleditsch and Batarra followed, though at a distance, his footsteps, and fully confirmed his observations. Bulliard not only recognised the fact, previously Ann. ^ Mag. N, Hist. Vol. ix. B
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