12 PLANT-LIFE 



spores ultimately coalesce, to form a plasmodium; but 

 before this occurs, they lose their flagella, ceasing to 

 swim, and contenting themselves with creeping move- 

 ments of an amoeboid type. The assembling and 

 coalescence into a plasmodium is illustrated in Fig. 6. 



From this brief sketch of the life of the Myxomycetes 

 we see that in their plasmodial forms, and as regards 

 their swarm-spores, they can digest solid food after the 

 fashion of Amwbce, and in this and other respects dis- 

 play distinct animal characteristics. Moreover, they are 

 dependent upon organic material for nutrition, as is the 

 case with all animals. At the same time we know that 

 there are undoubted plants, such as the fungi and bac- 

 teria, which, unlike green plants, do not build up in- 

 organic material into organic form, but depend upon 

 organic material in nutrition. But these plants absorb 

 food in solution through their cell-walls, and do not eat 

 solid material. But in the matter of spore-formation 

 and reproduction, the so-called " Slime Fungi " display 

 some likeness to fungi and therefore we need not 

 wonder that in the past they have been claimed as 

 animals by zoologists, and as plants by botanists. The 

 modern attitude towards them is that of discreet agnos- 

 ticism, and there is a distinct inclination to relegate them 

 to a position in the genealogical tree of Nature peculiarly 

 their own. 



The Bacteria, which we propose to consider briefly, 

 are classed as plants. Popularly known as " microbes," 

 they are regarded with horror by a public which associ- 

 ates them entirely with disease. True it is that bacterial 

 organisms have an intimate connection with such 



