HIDDEN MARRIAGES 



573 



sporangia dehisces. This is particularly the case with several species of 

 Arcyria. In Arcyria nutans, for an extreme example, the capillitium 

 extends to about ten times the length of the sporangia from which it 

 escaped. Trichia botrytis in the swarm-cell stage lives in wood that is 

 thoroughly rotten and sodden, coming to the exterior to form a purple- 

 brown plasmodium, and finally the massive-stalked pear-shaped sporangia. 

 These are at first of a beautiful red colour ; but as they dry and harden 



FIG. 721. Leocarpus fragilis. 

 The plasmodium of this Myxomycete creeping over mosses and pine-needles on a pine stump. 



there is some reduction in the thickness of the stalks and the sporangia 

 turn to yellowish-olive, red-brown, or purple-black. In some cases each 

 sporangium stands apart on its own stalk, but in others from three to eight 

 stalks will unite and support a cluster of as many sporangia. 



