MYXOGASTRIC FUNGI. 361 



This mode of explanation has received further confirmation from 

 the facts recently ascertained, in regard to the great number of 

 forms under which a single germ may develope itself. For it has 

 been ascertained, -with regard to the Fungi generally, that different 

 individuals of the very same species may not only develope 

 themselves according to a great number of very dissimilar modes 

 of growth, but that they may even bear very dissimilar types 

 of Fructification ; and further, that even the same individual 

 may put forth, at different periods of its life, those two kinds of 

 fructification — the Basidio-sporous, in which the spores are de- 

 veloped by outgrowth from free points (Basidia), and the Theca- 

 sporous, in which they are developed in the interior of cases (Thecce 

 or Asci, Fig. 173) — which had been previously considered as sepa- 

 rately characterizing the two principal groups into which the Class 

 is primarily divided. 



269. Attention has lately been called by Dr. de Bary to the very 

 curious .phenomena presented by certain members of the group of 

 Myxogastric Fungi, which are parasitic upon decaying wood, bark, 

 heaps of decaying leaves, tan-beds, &c. ; the ^Etkalium septicum, 

 to which his observations specially relate, being very common in 

 the last-named situation. When the Spores of this Plant are 

 placed in water, and are protected from evaporation, their external 

 envelopes rupture, and their contents escape in the condition of 

 cells invested only by a very thin primordial utricle ; each of which 

 comes to possess, after several changes of form, one or two cilia, by 

 which it executes movements of progression and rotation, and two 

 or three vacuoles, of which one at least always pulsates. After a 

 few days these lose their cilia, acquire a larger size with more 

 numerous and less regular vacuoles, and move in a creeping manner 

 by the protrusion of parts of the body, which continually changes 

 its form ; thus resembling an Amceba (Fig. 231) in all essential 

 particulars. The next stage consists in the enormous extension of 

 contractile protoplasmic threads, which form a sort of Mycelium 

 that eventually gives origin to the fructification : whether each 

 of these groups of threads — which bears a strong resemblance, 

 except in its far larger size, to the sarcodic network put forth by 

 Rhizopods (Fig. 232) — originates in a single Amcebiform body, or 

 is formed by the coalescence of several, is not yet certainly ascer- 

 tained. Now this protoplasmic substance is found to contain foreign 

 particles, such as cells of Algse, sporules of Fungi, &c, in its in- 

 terior ; and it was originally urged by De Bary that the particles thus 

 taken-in serve, as in the case of the Rhizopods, for food, and that 

 the Myxogastres, in this stage of their existence, are to be accounted 

 Animals, and may claim the designation Mycetozoa. There is no 

 sufficient evidence, however,' that such is their true character ; 

 and taking for granted the general truthfulness of the account just 

 given, all that it can be fairly considered to prove is, that the 

 actively-moving Animalcule -like ' Zoospore ' which is the first pro- 



