TAXONOMY 
185 
of its body called pseudo podia. The size of the plasmodium 
varies from a ten-cent piece to several square feet of surface. 
It is net-like, the net being of irregular dimensions. Like the 
amoeba the outer portion of the plasmodium is clear and watery and 
known as the ectoplasm, the inner portion is granular and called 
the endoplasm. Like the amoeba and unlike other plants, this 
slimy body engulfs solid food by means of its pseudopodia instead of 
admitting it in solution. It is extremely sensitive to light being 
negatively heliotropic, i.e., turning away from the sun’s rays. 
Fig. 75. — A, B, Comalricha nigra. A, Sporangium, natural size; B. capilli- 
tium, 20/1; C, E, Stemonitis fusca; C, sporangium, natural size; D and E, capilli- 
tia, 5/1, 20/1; F, H, Enerthema papillalum, F, unripe; G, mature sporangium, 
1 o / r d Ii, capillitium, 20/1. (C, D. after nature. A. F, G, H. after Roslafinski; 
B, E, after de Bury in Die naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien I. 1, p. 26.) 
At the time of reproduction, the plasmodium creeps to the surface. 
The whole plasmodium then forms one or more fructifications. 
These fructifications vary from cushion-like masses ( celhallia ) 
to more elevated bodies in which the net-like structure of the plas- 
modium is preserved ( plasmodiocar ps ) to stalked sporangia (spore 
cases). All of the fructifications, however, produce spores. Dur- 
ing wet weather amoeboid protoplasts ( swarm spores ) escape from 
the spores, each developing a single cilium and moving actively 
about. In time the cilia disappear and these swarm spores coalesce 
in smaller then larger groups to form a plasmodium. 
