16 



HUTCHINSON'S POPULAR BOTANY 



causes bubonic plague, could, it is said, find lodgment on a needle's 

 rjoint : while their rate of multiplication is so extraordinary that many 

 millions of millions may be produced from a single individual in a few 

 hours! It is estimated that one cubic inch of good soil will contain 

 something between fifty millions and four hundred millions of Bacteria, 

 and many of them are of the greatest value to the husbandman. Surely 

 we are here approaching the Infinite ! 



In contrast to the Schizomycetes may be mentioned the Xitdla, an 

 interesting fresh-water plant, which has cylindrical cells that measure 



Photo by] 



FIG. 33. A SLIME-FUNGUS (Lycogala miniata). 



[E. Step. 



This is one of the largest of those members of the group that have separate sporangia (in others many sporangia are com- 

 bined to form cake- or cushion-like masses called aethalia). They are pink in colour, and are here shown of the natural size. 



nearly two inches in length and ^ih of an inch in breadth ; or such one- 

 celled plants as the Vaucheria* (fig. 28) and Siphonoclada, where the 

 individual consists of a remarkable branched cell, greatly in excess of this. 

 Each of the soft hairs which cover the seed of the Cotton-plant (fig. 27), 

 and which are spun into cotton, is in reality a long cell. This may be 

 readily seen by unravelling a thread of reel-cotton and placing it under 

 the microscope. 



* Vaucheria is a fresh- water alga. Perhaps it is hardly fair to compare the branched 

 nuiltinucleate body of Vaucheria with a simple cell. 



