CHLAMYDOMYXA LABYRINTHULOIDES. 119 
attached, sometimes in crowds, sometimes singly, by one of 
the before-mentioned neck-like prolongations, forming, as it 
were, a broad isthmus or neck, joining the great globose or 
lobed portion to the plant, but at other times they seem to 
lie upon the plant without any evident union with it. They 
are of variable size and, as mentioned, of most variable shape. 
But on closely scrutinising some of the Sphagnum-leaves 
(ultimately other leaves), I was still more surprised to find 
very small examples, with a simple wall, or perhaps with a 
wall of two lamine, unmistakeably inside the large hyaline 
cells with annular and spiral fibre (Pl. VII, fig. 2). These 
little examples were in every respect (except size and number 
of lamine of the coat) like the external larger ones ; very small 
ones were of an ellipsoidal or subglobular figure, but larger 
ones, not uncommonly, showed an elongate torulose figure, 
simply due to the example, now enlarging so as to fill the cell, 
and becoming at intervals cinctured about, and by reason of 
its expansive growth, constricted by the recurring annular 
fibres of the sphagnum cell (fig. 2, middle and left). Other 
cases could be found where such little examples protruded, 
hernia-like, on the surface of the leaf. Thereupon the 
*sarcode ” with the granular colouring contents seems to 
pass up into the protrusion; then, true to its propensity, to 
form a fresh coat, leaving behind the original one, and thus 
seemingly explaining how these bodies come to cover the 
leaf here and there, attached thereto (Fig. 2, to right). 
No clue whatever have I been able to obtain as to how these 
bodies originally get into the cavity of the leaf-cell, or how 
their “germs” can enter. No doubt, in Sphagnum, one 
could suppose small germs could enter through the pre- 
existent openings or foramina in the wall of the hyaline cells, 
and through the same openings the hernia-like protrusions 
could make an exit without any material injury to the 
Sphagnum, for it is true that, for a length of time, it can 
thus harbour this organism without its seeming to suffer. 
But though this is so, it is no less true that when this orga- 
nism at last grows to excess, the Sphagnum succumbs, gets 
eventually broken up, the tissue of the ‘leaves ” disappear- 
ing and nothing left but the “stem” and “branches ”’ 
covered by this growth, and such portions seem to be at last 
utterly ‘ killed.” 
But if it were supposed that in Sphagnum “ germs ” could 
make their way through the openings in the leaves, the same 
supposition would not hold good, as regards other plants, 
without such normal openings in the cells. Of such none 
offers a more curious example than the cells (of the roots) of 
