8 THE NORTH AMERICAN S LIME-MOULDS 



with difficulty kept alive. Hay infusions, infusions of rotten 

 wood, etc., may sometimes give excellent results. The spores 

 of Didyminm crnstaceum were sown upon a heap of leaves in 

 autumn. An abundant display of the same species followed in 

 the next June ; but, of course, the intervening phases were 

 not observed. The most satisfactory studies are obtained by 

 plasmodia brought in directly from the field. 



With. such a life history as that thus briefly sketched, it is 

 small wonder that the taxonomic place of the Slime-moulds is 

 a matter of uncertainty, not to say perplexity. So long as 

 men studied the ripened fruit, the sporangia and the spores, 

 with the marvellous capillitium, there seemed little difficulty ; 

 the Myxomycetes were fungi, related to the puff-balls, and in 

 fact to be classed in the same natural order. The synonomy 

 of some of the more noticeable species affords a very inter- 

 esting epitome of the history of scientific thought in this 

 particular field of investigation. Thus the first described 

 Slime-mould identifiable by its description is Lycogala epiden- 

 drum (Buxb.) Fries, the most puff-ball-looking of the whole 

 series. Ray, in 1690, called this Fungus coccineus. In 1718, 

 Ruppius described the same thing as Lycoperdon sanguineum ; 

 Dillenius at about the same time, as Bo-vista miniata; and it 

 was not until 1729, that Micheli so far appreciated the structure 

 of the little puff-ball as to give it a definite generic place and 

 title, Lycogala globosnm . . ., etc. But Micheli's light was too 

 strong for his generation. As Fries, one hundred years later, 

 quaintly says : " . . . immortalis Micheli tarn claram lucem 

 accendit ut successores proximi earn ne ferre quidem potuerint." 

 Notwithstanding Micheli's clear distinctions, he was entirely 

 disregarded, and our little Lycogala was dubbed Lycoperdon 

 and Mucor down to the end of the century ; and so it was not 

 till 1790 that Persoon comes around to the standpoint of 

 Micheli and writes Lycogala miniata. Fries himself, reviewing 

 the labors of his predecessors all, grouped the Slime-moulds as 

 a sub-order of the Gasteromycetes and gave expression to his 

 view of their nature and position when he named the sub-order 



