52 OASPER 0. MILLEE. 



may cover an area measuring about 1 by 2 cm. They are 

 composed of a network of short, thick, anastomosing branches, 

 from the periphery of which extend branching, sausage-, 

 horn-, or club-shaped prolongations. There is not much 

 change in the appearance of the plasmodium for forty-eight 

 hours; during this time it may change its location on the hay, 

 but the motion is a slow one. At the end of this time the 

 motion becomes more rapid. The plasmodium moves some 

 distance from the surface of the water, and settles upon the hay 

 or on the glass. In one of the cultures the whole plasmodium 

 had moved 6 cm. in four hours. When it has found a suitable 

 place the peripheral prolongations are drawn in, there is no 

 longer any evidence of the presence of a network ; it then 

 appears as an oval or rounded, conical or flat, yellowish-white 

 mass, the surface of which is covered by a number of closely 

 crowded small hemispherical prominences. From each of 

 these prominences is formed a cylindrical sporangium. Soon 

 after the sporangia assume their permanent form, the yellow- 

 ish-white colour begins at the base to change to a reddish 

 colour, which gradually ascends to the apex, and finally 

 becomes a reddish or dark brown colour. 



It takes from twelve to eighteen hours from the time the 

 Plasmodium leaves the water until the sporangia are fully 

 developed. 



The well-developed sporangia are cylindrical, closely 

 crowded, and placed more or less perpendicular to the mem- 

 branous hypothallus, from which extends a branch going to the 

 surface of the water, indicating the route which the plasmo- 

 dium took. When the sporangia are formed on the glass the 

 Plasmodia take an oblique course up the side of the glass. 



There are slight differences in the appearance of the plas- 

 modia of the three cultures, but the difference is not alone 

 sufficient to enable one to say that they are distinct species. 

 The peripheral prolongations of Stemonitis B are usually 

 longer and thicker than Stemonitis A. The network of 

 Stemonitis C is a more open one tiian that of the other 

 two. 



