CH. VIII. MORPHOLOGY AND COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT. MYXOMYCETES. 425 



forming somewhat large roundish bodies with a delicate outline in which one or 

 more lime granules are imbedded; it is soluble in alcohol at least in Fuligo and 

 Didymium Serpula. 



Nuclei were not at first observed in the plasmodia. Cienkowski even stated 

 expressly that the nuclei present in the swarm-cells disappear when they coalesce. 

 But Schmitz l and Strasburger 2 have recently established the presence of numerous 

 nuclei in the plasmodium, and it may be presumed that they are the persistent nuclei 

 of the swarm-cells and products of their division. 



Besides the proper constituents of the plasmodium strange bodies of very various 

 kinds are often found inside it, such as spores of Fungi and Myxomycetes (see Fig. 183 

 1 2), parts of plants, &c. These objects are taken up from without into the interior 

 of the growing and moving plasmodium, one may say engulfed by it, in a way 

 which will be noticed again below, and they may be provisionally termed the solid 

 ingesla. 



FIG. 184. Ckondriodermei dijffbrme. Ex- 

 tremities of branches of a plasmodium. Mae". 

 390 times. 



FIG. 185. Didymium leucopiis. Portion of the margin of a small reticulated 

 plasmodium. After Cienkowski from Sachs' Lehrbuch. Magn. 100 tiroes. 



Reinke has recently published an elaborate investigation of the various substances 

 which enter into the composition of the plasmodium of Fuligo 3 , to which the reader 

 is here referred. 



The amoeboid movements of the swarm-cells are continued in the plasmodia. 

 They may be seen in larger specimens by continuous observation even with the naked 



1 Sitzgsber. d. Niederrhein. Ges. 4 Ang. 1879. 



2 Zellbildung u. Zelltheilung, 3 Aufl. p. 79. 



3 Studien ii. d. Protoplasma von J. Reinke u. H. Rodewald in Untersuch. aus d. hot. Laborat. d. 

 Univers. Gbttingen, II, Berlin, 1881. 



