THEIR STUDY IN BRITAIN. 3
So much for the earliest description of Mycetozoa.
As regards illustrations of them, the earliest I know of are
some made at least twenty years after Ray's death by the
German botanist, Dillenius, and are now, with his collections,
in the Herbarium of the University of Oxford. Dillenius was
born at Darmstadt in 1684. He had taken his doctor's degree
and had acquired a considerable botanical reputation before he
was induced by Dr. William Sherard to settle in England. He
became eventually the first Sherardian Professor of Botany in
Oxford. Dillenius is perhaps best known for his classical work
on Mosses, Liverworts, and Lichens. He was called " the Lynx
of Nature " from his keen insight into the structure of minute
plants. He also brought out, in 1724, an important enlarged
edition of Ray's Synopsis, which for sixty years formed the
standard book on British Botany. The section of his herbarium
dealing with fungi is arranged in the order of the Synopsis,
and consists of drawings illustrating the descriptions there given.
An account of the Dillenian herbarium has been published by
Prof. Vines and Mr. Druce, who supply modern names for
the specimens. The drawings of fungi were identified by Mr.
Massee, who recognized four species of Mycetozoa, viz.,
Lycogala epidendrum, Reticularia lycoperdon, a Didymium, and
Comatricha nigra. Of the last, Dillenius made the note—" I
have observed this several times on sticks in hedges "—a well-
known place for this species to occur.
The first series of illustrations of Mycetozoa that was
published appears in Nova Genera Plantarum, written by
that distinguished pioneer in the study of fungi, Pietro Micheli,
and published in Florence in 1729). By a curious coincidence,
one of the plates illustrating Mycetozoa is dedicated to our
Essex Botanist, Dr. Samuel Dale, the friend and neighbour of
Ray, and one of the subscribers to Micheli's book.4
The next British Botanist who described Mycetozoa is Sir
John Hill, who flourished in the middle of the 18th Century.
clearly shows that their rapid development had been observed. In the second part of the
book, which is devoted to descriptions of the figures, fig. I is described as follows : " Eine
Art fauler Schwiimmer, so in Tag und Nacht aufwachsen, ofte ganz leibfaibe, und
werden hernach falb," which may be translated : " A kind of putrifying fungus, growing
up in a day and a night, often entirely flesh-colour and becoming at length pale brown.
This well describes the changes of colour which the aethalia of this species show as they
pass from youth to maturity.
4 See " Illustrations of Mycetozoa dedicated to Samuel Dale. M.D., in Micheli's Nova
Genera Plantarum, 1729," by G. Lister (Ess. Nat., xviii. 2).