A NEW GENUS OF WATER MOLD RELATED TO 

 BLASTOCLADIA 



By W. C. Coker and F. A. Grant 



Plate 32 

 Septocladia n. genus. 



Plant small, slender, the short or long stalk not conspicuously dif- 

 ferentiated ; branches usually dichotomous, often verticellate in groups 

 of 3-5, separated from the nodes by distinct and complete septa, not 

 constricted at intervals ; in vigorous cultures repeating the branching 

 in the same way to form a complex plant. Sporangia oval, terminal, 

 sj^mpodially arranged, not rarely in chains of several, often clustered 

 by the shortening of the branches, which continue the stem by one or 

 more lateral buds beneath. Spores biciliate at times, but the two cilia 

 so closely approximated or fused as usually to appear as one. Resting 

 bodies (unfertilized eggs), borne in the same way as the sporangia and 

 of the same size and shape, at maturity enclosed in a thin, hyaline 

 sheath out of which they finally fall through an apical slit ; the wall 

 brown and conspicuously pitted as in Blastocladia : the whole probably 

 representing a thin-walled oogonium completely filled with a thick- 

 walled parthenogenetic egg. 



A saprophytic aquatic of anomalous structure and differing from 

 all other Phycomycetes in the regular and normal septation of the 

 plant body. To be placed in the Family BJastocladiaceae. 



Septocladia dichotoma n. sp. 



Characters of the genus. Threads extending about 3 mm. from 

 the substratum on a termite ant, about 10-73/x thick, growing grad- 

 ually more slender distally at each .ioint, basal joints 35-130^ long, 

 those of central region up to about 675/^, long ; tips blunt, h.y aline. 

 Sporangia oval, 28-46 x 55-76/x; spores escaping singly through one 

 or two usually apical holes or short papillae, biciliate (or uniciliate 

 by fusion of the two cilia?) oval when swimming with the cilia apical, 

 monoplanetic, amoeboid before encysting 10/x thick when at rest ; 

 sprouting by a slender thread. Resting bodies appearing later than the 

 sporangia but of the same shape, 25-39.2 x 36. 3-49. 2/^,, the conspicuous 

 pits apparently sunken from the outside in regular fashion as in 

 Blastocladia Pringsheimii, at maturity slipping from the thin, clasp- 

 ing sheath ; their sprouting not observed. 



