276 APPENDIX 



by its colour, reveals the presence of Chlamydomyxa when it is present in 

 abundance on the vegetation of a pool. 



The oat-shaped corpuscles ("spindles" of Archer, "physodes" of 

 Hieronymus) are shining, highly-refracting bodies, homogeneous or faintly 

 laminated, of a pale bluish tint and semifluid consistence (Fig. 1, A). 

 They are round or oval in shape, but become longer (oat-shaped) when 

 drawn out on the pseudopodial filaments. They vary in size up to about 

 _//, in length. As regards composition, Hieronymus identifies them with 

 phloroglucin, a member of the aromatic series which occurs in the 

 Fucaceae. 



When Chlamydomyxa was discovered the resemblance between these 

 bodies, held in the expanded, stiff pseudopodial network (Fig. 3 (2)) and 

 the nucleated units of the associations of Labyrinthula, suggested the view 

 that they might be of similar nature, although nothing of a nuclear 

 character could be revealed in the corpuscles by stains, and they are, 

 moreover, much smaller than the units of Labyrinthula. The evidence 

 which we now have as to the nuclei of Chlamydomyxa, and as to the 

 chemical nature of these bodies, prevents our acceptance of this view. 

 They are probably to be regarded as reserve food material (possibly in 

 relation with the metabolism of cellulose) stored in a granular form. 



Crystals of oxalate of lime, formed doubtless in the katabolic pro- 

 cesses, are also present in the cell-fluids, and they may be crowded in 

 vacuoles of the encysted animal, to be expelled when it emerges. 



The cysts of Chlamydomyxa are found in great abundance within the 

 large cells of the leaves of Sphagnum, or between the cells of other 

 aquatic plants (Hypnum^ Eriocaulon, cotton-grass, etc.). They may also 

 be found on the surface of these and other submerged bodies. 



They are invested by a cellulose envelope, often consisting of several 

 laminae added one within another, and the investment appears to be of a 

 plastic consistency, expanding with growth so as to cover large protrusions 

 of the cyst which extend through apertures in the cell-wall, and it may 

 close in about portions which are withdrawn from deeper recesses of the 

 plant tissue. Considerable growth of the protoplasmic body may occur 

 in the encysted condition, a result dependent on the holophytic nutrition 

 brought about by the agency of the chromatophores. The youngest 

 cysts found in a Sphagnum leaf are very small and contain a single 

 nucleus. As they increase in size and become limited by the walls of the 

 elongated leaf-cells they grow in length (Fig. 1, a and 6). The cysts may 

 finally break through the wall of the cell and project in lobate prominence's 

 to the exterior. The activities of the encysted organism do not, however, 

 result in uniform growth, for many cysts have shrunken contents, and 

 have formed a fresh wall separate from the original one, and in the 

 space between the envelopes groups of the red oil -globules referred to 

 above may lie, discharged before the inner wall was secreted. Moreover, 

 the contents of a cyst may undergo division within the envelope into two 

 or more parts, and each part then forms a wall of its own. 



When the cysts are fully grown and favourable conditions occur, an 

 aperture is formed in the envelope, presumably by the solvent action of 

 the protoplasm on the cellulose, and the contents emerge in the free state. 



