It was an Italian botanist, Giuseppe de Notaris[125], a Professor in Florence, who took up the work where Fée had left it. His comparative studies of both vegetative and reproductive organs convinced him of the great importance of spore characters in classification, the spore being, as he rightly decided, the highest and ultimate product of the lichen plant. In his microscopic examination of the various recognized genera, he found that while, in some genera, the spores conformed to one distinct type, in others their diversities in form, septation or colour gave a decisive reason for the establishment of new genera, while minor differences in size, etc. of the spores proved to be of great value in distinguishing species. The spore standard thus marks a new departure in lichenology. De Notaris published the results of his researches in a fragment of a projected larger work that was never completed. Though his views were overlooked for a time, they were at length fully recognized and further elaborated by Massalongo[126] in Italy, by Norman[127] in Norway, by Koerber[128] in Germany and by Mudd[129] in our own country. Massalongo had drawn up the scheme of a great _Scolia Lichenographica_, but like de Notaris, he was only able to publish a part. After twelve years of ill-health, in which he struggled to continue his work, he died at the early age of 36. Lindsay[130], Mudd and Leighton[131] were at this time devoting great attention to British lichens. Lauder Lindsay’s _Popular History of British Lichens_, with its coloured plates and its descriptive and economic account of these plants has enabled many to acquire a wide knowledge of the group. Mudd’s _Manual_, a more complete and extremely valuable contribution to the subject, followed entirely on the lines of Massalongo’s work. From his large experience in the examination of lichens he came to the conclusion that: “Of all organs furnished by a given group of plants, none offer so many real, constant and physiological characters as the spores of lichens, for the formation of a simple and natural classification.”