THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 

 No. 28. APRIL 1860, 



XXV. On the Mycetozoa. 

 By Dr. A. DE BARY, Professor of Botany in Freiburg*. 



[With a Plate.] 



THE object of this memoir is to describe a group of organisms 

 hitherto placed in the family of Fungi known as Myxomycetes 

 or Myxogastres, and to prove them close allies of the Rhizopoda, 

 and therefore members of the animal kingdom. Assuming this 

 relationship to be proved, the author proposes to designate the 

 group Mycetozoa, and proceeds to a sketch of the present state 

 of knowledge respecting the undoubted Fungi, preparatory to 

 instituting a comparison between their process of development 

 and that of the so- named Mycetozoa. 



The recent elucidation of the vital economy of the Fungi the 

 fact that they take up as food organic matter, either in a still 

 living state or in the process of decomposition, and that they 

 are destitute of chlorophyll and the characteristic colouring 

 matter of plant affords sufficient evidence that this class of 

 organisms, so rich in forms, differs widely from all other Thallo- 

 phytes. An examination of their histological characters will 

 still further display the difference observable. 



The thallus of all Fungi is composed of the so-called Fungi- 

 fibres or hyphse, which are elongated filiform and cylindrical, 

 mostly branched, unicellular sacs ; or in most instances filiform 

 branched rows of at first cylindrical cells, subsequently often 

 of very various figure (PL VI. fig. 7). The longitudinal growth 

 of these fibres, so far as relates to new cell-formation, takes place 

 exclusively or principally by transverse fission of the terminal 

 cell of the fibre, and the construction thereupon of a new ter- 



* Translated, in abstract, from the ' Zeitsclmft fiir Wissenschaftliche 

 Zoologie/ Band 10, 1859, p. 88, by.J. T. Arlidge, A.B., M.B. (Lond.). 



Ann. $ Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3~ Vol.v. 16 



