1 897-98.] Plants which dissipate Energy. 395 



dissolves cellulose, and so the fungal mycelium penetrates the 

 tissues of other plants and absorbs their cell contents. What 

 is also worthy of note is, that when fungal filaments come 

 into contact they penetrate into each other. If several spores 

 of mould be grown in the same hanging drop, as they grow 

 they will most likely unite. It is like a forest where the 

 branches of the trees grew together, and so gave an organic 

 unity to the forest. 



I might say much more, but must abbreviate this report. 

 Amongst our other cultures, we have tried to grow another 

 class of organisms — those strange little things, half plant and 

 half animal, the Mycetozoa. "We have found several in our 

 walks, some in great numbers. In their amoeba -like stage 

 they have the curious property of consuming large numbers of 

 bacteria, — thus playing in nature the part which the white 

 blood - corpuscles play in the higher animals. 



I began by speaking of energy stored up in the green plant, 

 and of such energy turned into vital action in the fungus. The 

 machine which works for either purpose has the same external 

 form. Let me give a mechanical illustration of a similar kind. 

 A stream drives a water-wheel, the water-wheel drives a 

 dynamo, and the dynamo charges an accumulator. The 

 accumulator may be in a launch or a street car. The accumu- 

 lator is connected with a motor, and the motor drives the car 

 or the launch. The stream in the living world is the sun- 

 light, the water-wheel is the chlorophyll, the dynamo may be 

 called protoplasm, the energy stored up in the accumulator is 

 starch, or cellulose and the like, the motor is again protoplasm, 

 and the motion is vital action. The same machine may 

 perform opposing kinds of work — the alga is the dynamo, the 

 fungus the motor. 



I think one of the aims of the Microscopical Section of this 

 Society should be to produce a few specialists. One man 

 should know mycetozoa well, another diatoms, another lichens, 

 another water -fleas, and so on. We want specialists who 

 know something of the great questions of biology. It was 

 Darwin who said that a man cannot be a good biologist with- 

 out being familiar with at least one group of living things. 

 He himself, as we all know, wrote a valuable treatise on 

 Cirripedia. 



