PROTOPHYTIC AND OTHER FUNGI. 327 



many months/ the dry sclerotium is placed in water, it swells up, and its 

 cells (?) again flow together into a protoplasmic mass, which soon re- 

 sumes its former life as a plasmodium. So when the thick-walled cysts, 

 after being long desiccated, are placed in water, their cysts rupture, and 

 their protoplasmic bodies issue forth, to lead the life of AmcebcB, and to 

 form fresh plasmodia, either by themselves, or by fusion with other like 

 bodies. 1 



324. Another most interesting connecting link between the Vegetable 

 and Animal kingdoms, is an organism discovered by Mr. W. Archer * 

 sometimes ivitliin the leaf-cells of Sphagnum ( 329), and sometimes at- 

 tached to the surface of its leaves to which he has given the name of 

 Chlamidomyxis labyrinthuloides (Fig. 209). In its early condition, 

 whilst still inhabiting the Sphagnum-cells, this parasite resembles a large 

 thick-walled Vegetable cell, with either green or red cell-contents; and is 

 found to consist of a firm many-layered envelope which shows a distinctly- 

 cellulose reaction, inclosing a colorless hyaline substance, through which 

 a great multitude of granules are dispersed, some of them of a bright red, 

 and others of a yellowish-green color, the numbers of the two bearing 

 so constant an inverse proportion to each other, as to make it likely that 

 the red are produced by a color-change in the green. If this state 

 alone were known to us, we should have no hesitation in regarding the 

 organism as a Vegetable cell, the ' endoplasm ' of which consists of proto- 

 plasm with chlorophyll-granules dispersed through it. But as it aug- 

 ments in size, it produces a bulging of the wall of the Sphagnum-cell, by 

 the rupture of which it makes its way to the surface; and a new stage in 

 its history then commences. Though the many-layered cellulose wall is 

 so firm as to resist a considerable amount of external pressure, it bursts 

 open from within, and the endoplasm then streams forth, carrying with 

 it its imbedded granules. The protoplasmic trunk, almost directly that 

 it leaves the cell-cavity, begins to subdivide into branches, from which 

 others are put forth; and by this continued ramification and the inoscu- 

 lation of the offshoots, an extended network is formed, consisting of 

 threads of extreme tenuity. In constant motion along these are seen 

 minute fusiform particles of a bluish-green color,- which are obviously 

 identical with the round granules of the central mass, these changing 

 their shape as they go forth to wander along the filaments. Sometimes 

 the protoplasm accumulates in particular spots, forming 'islands' (#,#), 

 each of which may become a centre of fresh radiation for hyaline 

 threads. These accumulations frequently take place round Diatoms, 

 Desmids, or other minute Vegetable organisms (#); which, being thus 

 imbedded in the extensions of the protoplasmic body, are drawn towards 

 it by their retraction, and at last engulfed within it. It would appeal- 

 that the whole of the protruded endoplasm may be retracted into the 

 original cell-cavity, and that this may be closed up again by the forma- 



1 The very peculiar history of the Myxomycetes (previously known as Myxo- 

 gastric Fungi) was first investigated by De Bary, who was disposed to regard 

 them as Animals ('Die Mycetozoen,' in "Zeitschr. f. w. Zool.," Bd. x., 1860). 

 The subject was taken up by Cienkowski, the results of whose careful study of it 

 will be found in his admirable Memoirs, 'Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der 

 Myxomyceten,' in Pringsheim's " Jahrbiicher," Bd. iii. (1863), pp. 325, 400, and 

 ' Ueber einige Rhizopoden und verwandte Organismen,' in "Archiv f. Mikr. 

 Anat.,"Bd. xii. (1876) p. 15; and he also is disposed to rank this group in the 

 Animal kingdom. On the other hand, Prof. Sachs and other high Botanical au- 

 thorities continue to rank it among Fungi. 



2 "Quart. Journ. of Microsc. Science," Vol. xv. (1875), p. 107. 



