pears to me to be a
perfect absurdity."

It appears to us that a great deal of confusion and a large number of
errors which creep into our modern generalizations and hypotheses, may
be traced to the acceptance of analogies for identities. How many
cases of mistaken identity has the improvement of microscopes revealed
during the past quarter of a century. This should at least serve as a
caution for the future.

Apart, however, from the "gonidia," whatever they may be, is the
remainder of the lichen a genuine fungus? Nylander writes, "The
anatomical filamentose elements of lichens are distinguished by
various characters from the hyphae of fungi. They are firmer, elastic,
and at once present themselves in the texture of lichens. On the other
hand, the hyphae of fungi are very soft, they possess a thin wall, and
are not at all gelatinous, while they are immediately dissolved by the
application of hydrate of potash, &c."[T]

Our own experience is somewhat to the effect, that there are some few
lichens which are doubtful as to whether they are fungi or lichens,
but, in by far the majority of cases, there is not the slightest
difficulty in determining, from the peculiar firmness and elasticity
of the tissues, minute peculiarities which the practised hand can
detect rather than describe, and even the general character of the
fruit that they differ materially from, though closely allied to
fungi. We have only experience to guide us in these matters, but that
is something, and we have no experience in fungi of anything like a
_Cladonia_, however much it may resemble a _Torrubia_ or _Clavaria_.
We have _Pezizae_ with a subiculum in the section _Tapesia_, but the
veriest tyro would not confound them with species of _Parmelia_. It is
true that a great number of lichens, at first sight, and casually,
resemble species of the _Hysteriacei_, but it is no less strange than
true, that lichenologists and mycologists know their own sufficiently
not to commit depredations on each other.

Contributions are daily being made to this controversy, and already
the principal arguments on both sides have appeared in an English
dress,[U] hence it will be unnecessary to repeat those which are
modifications only of the views already stated, our own conclusions
being capable of a very brief summary: that lichens and fungi are
closely related the one to the other, but that they are not identical;
that the "gonidia" of lichens are part of the lichen-