APPENDIX D. Ixxix 



the necklaces/ This question as to the extreme diversity 

 of the forms of fructification, which may be assumed by one 

 and the same plant under the influence of diverse conditions, 

 has been of late years much studied by the brothers Tulasne, 

 who have embodied their most important observations in 

 a magnificently illustrated quarto work entitled ' Selecta 

 Fungorum Carpologia/ 



The lower Fungi belonging to the Myxogastric family, 

 which include forms closely allied to the Saprolegnicz, are 

 most interesting organisms, more than one half of whose 

 life-history is passed in an amoeboid condition. This con- 

 dition is so obvious, that De Barry has argued in favour of 

 the members of this family being regarded as animals rather 

 than as fungi. The spore cases of Ethalium septicum and 

 other Myxogasteres are formed by the union of certain large 

 sarcode or protoplasmic threads. The homogeneous internal 

 substance of this spore case then breaks up into a number 

 of distinct nucleated bodies, each of which, after they have 

 been liberated in water, escapes from a delicate enclosing 

 membrane, ' in the form of a cell, clothed only by a very 

 thin primordial utricle, thus resembling the reproductive 

 cells of many algae. These escaped cells undergo changes 

 of form, eventually exhibiting one or two cilia, and two or 

 three vacuoles, of which one at least pulsates. They have 

 also a motion of progression and rotation, as in the case of 

 ordinary zoospores V They afterwards appear to develop 

 and to attain a larger size. During this period they lose their 

 cilia and their rotatory movements, and assume the creeping 

 mode of progression and ever- varying form of true Amoeba*. 

 De Barry says : * If, therefore, on the one hand, the develop- 

 ment of Amcebce from the products of the germination of the 



1 Quoted from abstract in ' Journ. of Microsc. Science,' 1860, p. 99. 

 ! In this condition they are frequently seen enclosing cells of algae and 

 other articles of food, like ordinary Amoebae. 



