398 The Botanical Gazette. _ [December. 
rods may be separated and isolated by crushing; and in this 
condition they show little modification from the vegetative 
state except that they are somewhat shorter and thicker. In 
a few cases rods have been observed within the cysts in 
stained preparations in which an apparent differentiation of 
the rod contents was observable. Whether this appearance 
-was due to the presence of spores or merely indicated an acci- 
dental aggregation of the granular cell contents was not deter- 
mined. 
For a short time after the cysts are mature and also before 
they germinate after a period of rest, the contained rods are 
clearly defined and do not adhere closely to one another. The 
contents of such a cyst when crushed makes its exit as a mass 
of distinct rods somewhat shorter and thicker than the vege- 
tative forms. 
In ‘‘germination’”’ the cysts emit their contents ina contin- 
uous stream which finally leaves the cyst wall as an empty 
shell, the emission being effected through the absorption of a 
portion of the cyst wall, usually at the base in the spore-like 
forms, sometimes at the apex or elsewhere. _The mass of rods 
thus freed begins at once to vegetate, the individuals dividing 
rapidly and entering upon a new period of activity. Excep- 
tions to this course are often found in old cultures of C. craoca- 
tus where cysts that have germinated ix s7¢u at the tips of 
the cystophores may frequently be seen producing secondary 
cysts directly, which are borne on short, slender secondary 
cystophores (fig. 9), a circumstance which still further illus- 
trates the remarkable though superficial resemblances which 
exist between these forms and higher fungi. 
__ Inthe sporiferous species, which have been included in the 
single genus Myxococcus, there may be a general encystment 
or the spore mass into a definitely formed coherent structure, 
as in M. corallotdes, or this structure may normally become 
soft and semi-fluid through the deliquescence of the gelatinous 
matrix in which the spores are imbedded, as in JZ. rubescens 
and M. virescens. The spores are more or less irregularly 
spherical refractive bodies, the diameter of which is much 
escens. The method by which the spores are derived from 
. . a- 
