CH. VIII.—MORPHOLOGY AND COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT.—AFFINITIES. 445 
shows the amoeboid movement of a plasmodium, it has not the character which is 
involved in the origin of a plasmodium; this is the case too with the spore of 
Porphyra which also has the power of amoeboid motion. 
There is therefore no real ground for assuming a direct relationship with these 
Chytridieae, whether they do or do not form a natural group with the other species 
which produce mycelia, a question which, as was explained in Chap. V, must for the 
present remain undetermined. 
It is a totally different question whether it is possible to suppose a common 
origin for these particular Chytridieae and the Mycetozoa, and consequently a more 
remote and indirect relationship. The comparison of the facts known to us shows it 
to be probable, as Biitschli points out, that the starting point of the naked Amoebae 
of the zoologists is to be sought in the group of very simple organisms known as the 
Flagellatae, and a study of the swarm-spores of the Mycetozoa leads to the same 
view, for in the stage of their existence when they are furnished with cilia they have 
all the characters of the simpler Flagellatae. But not only the Chytridieae which 
produce no mycelium but all the group show such close affinity to the Flagellatae, 
that they might if necessary be phylogenetically derived from them. But this is true 
also of the entire assemblage of the simple Algae, with which it was sought to connect 
the Fungi in the sections of Chapter V. We may as well place the Volvocineae 
with the Flagellatae as with the Chlorophyceae, if we prefer that arrangement, and 
no one will doubt the close affinity which exists between them and the rest of the 
undoubted Chlorophyceae. 
If then we distinctly separate the Mycetozoa from the Fungi, and are prepared 
even to draw the boundary line which divides the two organic kingdoms between these 
groups, we do not thereby deny that members of the two divisions may approach very 
near to the group of the Flagellatae, towards which all the evidence shows that. the 
two kingdoms converge, and thereby approach also very near to one another. 
The purpose of the foregoing remarks has been to do for the Mycetozoa what 
was previously done for the Fungi, namely to establish their affinities on the foundation 
of the facts of which we are at present in possession, or speaking more boldly to give 
the true account of them. Such an attempt whenever made must be made with the 
material then at hand. Ifthe foundation of facts changes with the progress of our 
researches a fresh attempt must be made. 
The views of botanists as to the position of the Mycetozoa in the system, have 
already varied much in the course of time. The older view just noticed above, which 
placed the Myxomycetes with the Gastromycetes on the strength of a mere resem- 
blance between the mature sporangia in the two groups, has now only a historical 
interest. Further remarks on this point will be found in my monograph of 1864. 
The ideas with regard to the place of the Mycetozoa in the natural system which 
were expressed by Famintzin and Woronin in their beautiful work on Ceratium do not 
at the present day call for discussion. Cormu in 1872 endeavoured to connect them 
with the Chytridieae, chiefly by assuming the formation of plasmodia in the genera of 
Chytridieae which do not produce a mycelium; but we have already shown that this 
‘assumption is without foundation. The opinion represented in Brefeld’s work on 
Dictyostelium (page 20), that this organism might connect the group of the Myxomycetes 
with the Fungi through the Mucorini, is refuted by a comparison of the course of 
development in the two groups. The more recent utterances of the same writer on the 
