84 
Journal of Mycology 
[Vol. 9 
College and Experiment Station is a subscriber. Botanists have 
supported it generously, sending valuable specimens illustrating 
new practical results. 
The supplements are intended to be scientific regardless of 
practical bearings. Fifty copies are prepared. Three supple¬ 
ments have been issued: A.—Phycomycetes; B.—Uredineae; 
C.—Ustilagineae. 
It is desired to add to each of these and to prepare others. 
Much material is already in hand; more is desired. Botanists 
are especially requested to co-operate in the preparation of sets 
to illustrate their special studies as Dr. Clinton has done. 
DICTYOSTEUEAE OR ACRASIEAE. 
A. P. MORGAN. 
Mr. Edgar W. Olive in the Cryptogamic Laboratory of Har¬ 
vard University, has been studying the Acrasieae. He has kept 
various members of this group of organisms in cultivation and 
under observation for five or six years. The results are em¬ 
bodied in a pamphlet of sixty pages or more, which is an admir¬ 
able example of careful and critical work. 
The order Acrasieae is represented by a small group of most¬ 
ly coprophilous organisms, comprising seven genera and twenty 
species. Knowledge of them began with the discoveries of Bre- 
feld, Cienkowsky and Van Tieghem. 
By Mr. Olive the number of species previously recorded has 
been nearly doubled and what is of more importance the life- 
histories of the species observed by him have been patiently fol¬ 
lowed out and their relation to kindred organisms clearly estab¬ 
lished. 
The life-cycle of the Acrasieae is separable into two well 
marked periods, one of vegetation and one of fructification. In 
germination the protoplasm of each spore issues forth and passes 
its vegetative stage as an amoeba; it absorbs nutriment, in¬ 
creases in size and becomes greatly multiplied by successive di¬ 
visions. After a more or less prolonged independent existence 
as vegetating individuals the amoebae congregate toward certain 
centers and form aggregations for the purpose of fructification. 
These colonies or syncitia develop into fructifications which show- 
increasing complexity of structure from the slightly differen¬ 
tiated sessile aggregations of the simpler species to the complex 
stalked sori of those most highly developed. In the stalked 
forms the scramble for place and position among the amoebae is 
something remarkable; for those forced to the center and com- 
