Lichen “spermatia” also differ very strikingly from the male cells of any given group of plants in their very great diversity of form and size; but the chief argument adduced by the opponents of the sexual theory is the capacity of germination that has been proved to exist in a fair number of species. It is true that germination has been induced in the spermatia of the Uredines by several research workers—by Plowright[737], Sappin-Trouffy[738] and by Brefeld[739]—who employed artificial nutritive solutions (sugar or honey), but the results obtained were not much more than the budding process of yeast cells. Brefeld also succeeded in germinating the “spermatia” of a pyrenomycetous fungus, _Polystigma rubrum_, one of the germinating tubes reaching a length four times that of the spore; but it is now known that all of these fungal spermatia are non-functional, either sexually or asexually, and degenerate soon after their expulsion, or even while still in the spermogonium. _c._ INFLUENCE OF SYMBIOSIS. In any consideration of lichens it is constantly necessary to hark back to their origin as symbiotic organisms, and to bear in mind the influence of the composite life on their development. After germination from the spore, the lichen hypha is so dependant on its association with the alga, that, in natural conditions, though it persists without the gonidia for a time, it attains to only a rather feeble growth of mycelial filaments. In nutritive cultures, as Möller has proved, the absence of the alga is partly compensated by the artificial food supply, and a scanty thalline growth is formed up to the stage of pycnidial fruits. Not only in pycnidia but in all the fruiting bodies of lichens, symbiosis has entailed a distinct retrogression in the reproductive importance of the spores, as compared with fungi. In Ascomycetes, the asci constitute the overwhelming bulk of the hymenium; in most lichens, there are serried ranks of paraphyses with comparatively few asci, and the spores are often imperfectly developed. It would not therefore be surprising if the bodies claimed by Möller and others as pycnidiospores had also lost even to a considerable extent their reproductive capacity. _d._ VALUE IN DIAGNOSIS. Lichen spermogonia have once and again been found of value in deciding the affinity of related plants, and though there are a number of lichens in which we have no record of their occurrence, they are so constant in others, that they cannot be ignored in any true estimation of species. Nylander laid undue stress on spermogonial characters, considering them of almost higher diagnostic value than the much more important ascosporous fruit. They are, after all, subsidiary organs, and often—especially in crustaceous species—they are absent, or their relation to the species under examination is doubtful. CHAPTER V PHYSIOLOGY I. CELLS AND CELL PRODUCTS