OF THE MINUTE FUNGI OF ESSEX.
37
remote, either with or without acute scattered spines. The spores
also are beautifully sculptured on the surface, in many of the species,
but the minutiae require high powers of the microscope for their
adequate examination.
Thus much will indicate sufficiently, so as not to be tedious,
some of the features of the Myxomycetes, even sufficient, we hope, to
induce some students to venture upon making their acquaintance.
We cannot dismiss them, however, without an allusion to their
extraordinary changes before reaching the mature condition in which
we have described them.
There is one condition in which enthusiasts have fancied they
derived conclusive evidence that this group, which we have termed
fungi, are undoubtedly animal, and allied to the Sponges. Let us
apply to this condition the remarks of one of the enthusiasts in
question, and then we shall not be accused of stating the case from
our own point of view :—
" Formerly, and by some even yet, regarded as a low order of fungi, or as a
special group of organisms intermediate between animals and plants, which exhibit
at one epoch of their life all the vital characteristics of the former, and at another
those of the latter kingdom, their admission into the Protozoic galaxy, or system,
will no doubt encounter objection. The evidence most recently and independently
eliminated by Cienkowski and De Bary concerning the structure and life-history
of this most remarkable group establishes, however, beyond question their purely
animal nature. The Mycetozoa, in common with all ordinary representatives of
the Protozoa, originate from minute sporuloid bodies which escape from the spore
case as monadiform animalcules, having a soft, plastic body-substance, a single
terminal flagellum, contractile vesicle, and endoplast, or nucleus ; being thus in
no way distinguishable from the typical representatives of the ordinary Flagellate
Infusoria, as met with in the genus Manas. By-and-by these monadiform zooids
become more sluggish, subside to the bottom of the inhabited fluid medium, and
for a while retaining their flagella, creep about after the manner of a Mastigamoeba,
incepting in the same way solid food particles, at any point of the periphery.
Sooner or later the flagella are withdrawn, and an entirely amoeboid condition is
assumed. These amoeboid zooids, encountering their fellows in the course of their
wanderings, at once coalesce with them, and form at length by their amalgamated
numbers and increase of size through the incessant increment of food those con-
spicuously large masses of gelatinous consistence, characteristic of the so-called
animal phase of the Myxomycetan technically known as the plasmodium. This
Plasmodium, exhibiting diverse forms, in various species, may be found creeping
over wet tan, rotten wood, or decaying leaves, in the similitude of a colossal amoeba,
or taking a reticulate form, spreads itself over the surface of these substances, and
presents under such conditions the aspect of the mycelia of various fungi.
Examined by the microscope, all trace of the multicellullar or multizooidal origin
of the plasmodium is found to have disappeared, the entire mass exhibiting the
character of homogeneous granular sarcode. A greater or less number of
rhythmically pulsating contractile vesicles are discernible at various points and a