Notes on Chondrioderma difforme and other 
Mycetozoa. 
BY 
ARTHUR LISTER. 
With Plate XVI. 
HE life-history of the Mycetozoa has been carefully 
-L worked out by De Bary, Cienkowski, and other 
naturalists on the Continent ; they have described the emerg- 
ing of the amoeboid swarm-cells from the spores, and their 
union to form the plasmodium, and they have told of the 
change of the plasmodium into sporangia. 
There is difficulty in following this remarkable history 
in almost all the members of the group ; the single species, 
which appears to stand apart as affording facilities for obser- 
vation, and which has been more especially studied, is that 
which has received the name of Chrondrioderma difforme , 
although it is a great question whether it should not be 
classed under the genus Didymium , as proposed by De Bary 
(Mycetozoa, 1864). 
I propose in the present paper to describe my observations 
on this species, and on some others where similarities or 
differences have presented themselves having relation to 
characters under consideration. 
Chrondrioderma difforme is an inhabitant of rotting leaves ; 
the sporangia may be met with in most seasons of the year, 
as chalk-white spots on fallen leaves which have accumulated 
in moist woods and shaded places ; they vary in shape from 
hemispherical or flattened discs to irregular forms which may 
come under Rostafinskffs term of plasmodiocarp, and in size 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. IV. No. XIV, May 1890.] 
