FIRST GROUP. THALLGPHl'TES. 



I. MYXOMYCETES 1 . 



The Myxomycetes are so unlike the rest of the Thallophytes in outward 

 appearance, especially as regards their vegetative body, that they have been entirely 

 separated from the vegetable kingdom by many authors. Their mode of life is that 

 of the Fungi ; they are chiefly saprophytes, that is, they live on dead organic sub- 



FIG. 7. A plasmodium of Didymium leucofus, magn. 350 times. K fructification of Arcyna incarnata still closed, C the 

 same after rupture of the wall/ and expansion of the capillitium cp (after De Bary) magn. 20 times. After Cienkowski. 



stances ; some, like Plasmodiophora Brassicae, the cause of the Club-root in Cabbage 

 plants, are parasites; a few only (Physarum album] live in water, the greater part 



1 De Bary, Die Mycetozoen, Leipzig 1864, [also Vergl. Morph. u. Biol. d. Pilze Mycetozoen it. 

 Bacterien, Leipzig 1884]. Cienkowski in Jahrb. f. wiss. Bot. III. pp. 325 u. 400. Brefeld, Ueber 

 Dictyostelium mucoroides (Abhandl. d. Senkenb. Ges. zu Frankfurt- a -M. 1869, VII. Bd.). 

 Rostafinski, Vers. eines Systems d. Mycetozoen, Strasburg 1873. Woronin, Plasmodiophora Brassicae 

 (Pringsheim's Jahrb. f. Wiss. Bot. XI). Regarding the nuclei, see Schmitz in Sitzungsber. der niederrh. 

 Ges. 4 August 1879, p. 21 des Sept.-Abdr. Strasburger, Zellbildung u. Zelltheilung, 3rd Ed. p. 79. 

 [Zopf in his Monograph, Die Pilzethiere oder Schleimpilze in Vol. III. Part 2 of Schenk's Handbuch der 

 Botanik, extends considerably the domain of this group. His work and De Bary's volumes quoted 

 above supply a full account of recent views .regarding it and give the literature. The following may 

 also be consulted with advantage : Klebs, Ueber die organisation einiger Flagellatengruppen und ihre 

 Beziehungen zur Algen und Infusorien (Untersuch. aus d. bot. Inst. zu Tubingen, Bd. I. Heft 2, 1883 ; see 

 also a notice of this work in Biolog. Centralbl. IV. Feb. 1885). Brefeld, Untersuch. aus d. 

 Gesammtgeb. d. Mykologie, VI (1884). Goebel, Tetramyxaparasitica (Flora, 1884). Gobi, Ueberdie 

 Gruppe der Amoeboideae (Arb. d. St. Petersb. Naturf. Ges. 1884, extr. in Bot. Centralbl. XXI. 1884). 

 Ray Lankester, article Protozoa in 9th ed. Encyc. Britan.] 



