50 British Fungi. 



of evidence lias been brou^^lit forward ao^ainst 

 Scliwender's views. 



Myxogastres. 



The Mijxogastres, Myxomycetes, or M'jcetozoa are 

 names given by different authors to a small but widely 

 distributed group of organisms common in Britain, on 

 decaying wood, &c., under the form of individually 

 small, often brightly coloured bodies, rendered con- 

 spicuous by beiDg usually gregarious in habit, and on 

 account of their resemblance in miniature to the puff- 

 balls or Gastromycetes, were considered by the old 

 authors as belonging to the fungi. It is now koown 

 that the Myxogastres are not fungi, from which group 

 they differ in many important features, more especially 

 in the remarkable structure of the vegetative phase, 

 which may briefly be described as follows. The 

 spores on germination give origin to one or mere 

 motile zoospores furnished with cilia, or to naked 

 amoeboid cells, which after a short period of activity 

 lose their cilia and combine together in considerable 

 numbers, forming a mass of naked protoplasm called 

 Si Plasmodium, frequently of considerable size, and still 

 possessing the power of voluntary movement. The 

 Plasmodium is surrounded by a yielding external 

 pellicle, which usually gives a cellulose reaction, but is 

 not broken up into distinct cells enclosed in cell-walls, 

 and there is a total absence of hyphse. The Plasmo- 

 dium remains during its vegetative phase in the 

 interior of decayed wood, or amongst vegetable 

 humus, where it creeps about in search of food, and 



