Any study of cells or cell-membranes in lichens should naturally include
those of both symbionts, but the algae though modified have not been
profoundly changed, and their response to the influences of the symbiotic
environment has been already described in the discussion of lichen
gonidia. The description of cells and their contents refers therefore
mainly to the fungal tissues which form the framework of the plant; they
have been transformed by symbiosis to lichenoid hyphae in some respects
differing from, in others resembling, the fungal hyphae from which they
are derived.
A. CELL-MEMBRANES
_a._ CHITIN. It was recognized by workers in the early years of the
nineteenth century that the substance forming the cell-walls of fungal
hyphae differed very markedly from the cellulose of the membranes in
other groups of plants, the blue colouration with iodine and sulphuric
acid so characteristic of cellulose being absent in most fungi. Various
explanations were suggested; but it was always held that the doubtful
substance was a cellulose containing something peculiar to fungi, this
view being strengthened by the fact that, after long treatment with
potash, a blue reaction was obtained. It was called fungus-cellulose by
De Bary[740] in order to distinguish it from true cellulose.
It was not till a much later date that any exact work was done on
the fungal cell, and that Gilson[741] by his researches was able to
prove that the membranes of fungi contained probably no cellulose, or,
“if cellulose were present, it was in a different condition from the
cellulose of other plants.” Winterstein[742] followed with the results of
his examination of fungus-cellulose: he found that it contained nitrogen
and therefore differed very considerably from typical plant cellulose.
Gilson[743] published a second paper dealing entirely with fungal tissues
in which he also established the presence of nitrogen, and added that
this nitrogenous compound resembled in various ways the chitin[744] of
animal cells. He further discovered that by heating it with potash a
substance was obtained that took a reddish-violet stain when treated with
iodine and weak sulphuric acid. This substance, called by him mycosin,
was proved later to be similar to chitosan[744], a product of chitin.
Escombe[745] analysed the hyphal membranes of _Cetraria_ and found
that they consisted mainly of a body called by him lichenin and of a
paragalactan. From _Peltigera_ he extracted a substance with physical
properties agreeing fairly well with those of chitosan, though analysis
did not give percentages reconcilable with that substance; the yield
however was very small. No lichenin was detected.
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