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TBE MYXOMYCETES OF EASTERN IOWA. 



THOMAS H. McBRIDE. 



The Myxomycetes or Slime-moulds include certain very 

 delicate and extremely beautiful fungus-like organisms com- 

 mon in all the moist and wooded regions of the earth. 

 Deriving sustenance, as they for the most part do, in the 

 decomposition-products of organic matter, they are usually to 

 be found upon or near decaying logs, sticks, leaves and other 

 masses of vegetable detritus, wherever the quantity of such 

 material is sufficient to insure continuous moisture. In fruit, 

 however, as will appear hereafter, Siime-moulds may occur 

 on objects of any and every sort. Their minuteness retires 

 them from ordinary ken; but such is the extreme beauty of 

 their microscopic structure, such the exceeding interest of 

 their life-history, that the enthusiastic student who has once 

 discovered and recognized the group is apt to seek widely 

 and to forget all else in the pursuit. In Iowa, and indeed in 

 all the Mississippi valley the Slime -moulds have been little 

 studied. Beyond the enumeration of a few species in the 

 plant lists of isolated localities, there has been no serious 

 attempt to give any account whatever of this section of our 

 biologic w^orld. It is hoped that the present paper though 

 mainly preliminary, may yet provoke more careful collection 

 and contribute to a profounder investigation of these unnoticed 

 organisms, in some respects, at least, the most interesting and 

 remarkable that fall beneath our lenses. 



