Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/233

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Chap. V.]
The Influence of the History of Development.
213

ment of other associated Fungi. The merit of first breaking ground in this direction belongs to the brothers Tulasne, who published before 1850 the first more exact researches into the Smuts and Rusts; these were followed by a long series of excellent works on different forms of Fungi, especially the subterranean, whose mode of life and anatomy were described and illustrated by splendid figures; but their account of the development of Ergot of rye (1853), their further investigations into the formation of the spores and the germination of Cystopus, Puccinia, Tilletia, and Ustilago, and their discovery of the sexual organs in Peronospora before 1861, were of greater theoretical importance. The 'Selecta Fungorum Carpologia,' which appeared in three volumes from 1861 to 1865 with fine figures, some of which represented the process of development, contributed greatly to the reformation of mycology. Meanwhile, Cessati had published investigations into the Muscardine-fungus of the silkworm-caterpillar, and Cohn into a remarkable Mould, the Pilobolus.

But mycology owes its present form to none more than to Anton De Bary, whose writings, the fruit of twenty years' labour, it would take too much space to enumerate one by one. With a correct understanding of the only means which can lead to sure results in this difficult branch of study, De Bary made it his first endeavour to perfect the methods of observation, and not only sought for the stages of development of the lower Fungi in their natural places of growth, but cultivated them himself with all possible precautions, and thus obtained complete and uninterrupted series of developments. By these means he succeeded in proving that parasitic Fungi make their way into the inside of healthy plants and animals, and that this is the explanation of the remarkable fact, that Fungi live in the apparently uninjured tissue of other organisms, a fact which formerly had led to the supposition that such Fungi owe their origin to spontaneous generation, or to the living contents of the cells of their entertainers. Pringsheim had already