iSgo] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 73 



from a dying fish, that the mycelia were very much branched, 

 I undertook to draw a plant as seen under the micro- 

 scope. Truly I was entertained with an interesting sight. I got 

 badly bothered on my drawing, being somehow unable to keep 

 the parts in their relative proportion. It was as if an artist, 

 after outlining a face, should find the nose lengthening to ele- 

 phantine dimensions. The truth was, I was attempting to draw 

 some mature hyph^, unconscious of the fact that young hyphae 

 were growing under my eyes. Of course, while the older parts 

 of the plant remained stationary, the young parts kept advanc- 

 ing in the field because they were growing, thus lengthening. 

 My first assurance of this was that a spur or bud-like projection 

 from a hypha which I had drawn had begun lengthening, and 

 had become a young hypha itself. I at once noted the time my 

 observations extended through, fifty-four minutes by the watch. 

 It is like witnessing the work of a mysterious hidden hand, 

 when one follows this steady growth. How noiselessly the 

 hyaline cylindrical thread, with its membraneous wall of cell- 

 ulose lengthens ! And how is it done ? All the time it is full 

 of that subtle life-stuff, protoplasm. Now I see it swelling out 

 at one spot like a bud ; this elongates, and in fact branches. It 

 is also noticeable that here and there a septum forms dividing 

 the cylinder into sections or cells. The contents of these cells 

 become increasingly opaque ; for the molecules of the invisible 

 protoplasm are now aggregating into visible granules. This 

 differentiation is the most advanced in the apical or top-most 

 cell, for here the granules are further aggregated into roundish 

 masses of granules. These when ripe will be the sporules, or 

 zoospores. The cylindrical cell which now contains them is 

 their sporangium. And here two facts are observable: the enlarg- 

 ing of these immature sporules produces a crowded situation, so 

 that for a while their form is affected from squeezing. They 

 are a little polygonal instead of spherical, and the other interest- 

 ing fact is that the cell must expand under this internal pressure ; 

 hence we have in form the head of a buUrush. A moment 

 comes when under this internal pressure there is produced a 

 crack or slit at the tip. With the inlet of pure water and free 

 oxygen, there comes a sudden and final expansion of the 

 sporules, and a resulting escape at the apex of the sporangium. 



