174 THE MYXOMYCETES OF PICTOU COUNTY. MOORE. 



All of the forms assigned to the Myxogastres by .Fries were 

 Myxomycetes producing spores in closed sporangia the 

 Endosporece of modern writers. He did not recognize the close 

 relationship to tihese, of such forms as Ceratiomyxa the med- 

 em Exosporece and these he assigned to the genus Ceratium, 

 of the order Cephalotrichei, class Hyphomycetes. 



In 1833, Link recognizing the fundamental distinction 

 between the Myxogastres and the remaining Grasteromycetes, 

 proposed to erect them into a new order of the class Fungi, 

 under the title Myxomycetes. In tihe same year this term was 

 also used by Wallroth. 



From the time of the publication of the Systema Mycologi- 

 cum until 1864, little advance was made in a knowledge of the 

 Myxomycetes ; but in that year was published the results of 

 cleBary's work on the group. It was this investigator who first 

 followed the history of tihese organisms from the germination 

 of the spore through the swarmer, amoeboid and plasmodic 

 phases to fructification and spore formation. Impressed with 

 the remarkable similarity between the life history of these 

 organisms and that of undoubted animal forms, he was con,- 

 strained to assign tlhem a place without the vegetable-, but not 

 necessarily within the animal kingdom. With the Myxomy- 

 cetes as previously understood, he united the Acrasiece of Van 

 Tieghem, a small group inhabiting the excrement of animals, 

 and proposed for the whole group the term Mycetozoa. Under 

 this head, ihowever, he still retained the term Myxomycetes for 

 the section so named by Link. 



The Acrasiece are saprophytes, the plasmodia of which are 

 formed by the aggregation, without fusion, of amoeboid bodies. 

 These latter arise directly from the germinating spores and the 

 flagellate stage is wanting. In fructification,, these amoeboid 

 bodies aggregate in large numbers, creeping up agiainst one 

 another and finally eacih becomes surrounded by a firm mem- 

 brane and functions as a spore. In many forms some of the 



