Myxomycetes

Myxomycetes, an obscure group of organisms referred by De Bary, to whom we owe most of our knowledge concerning them, to the animal kingdom, under the name Mycetozoa, he considering their nearest relationship to be with Amoeba (q.v.). Other botanists, however, emphasise their resemblances to Fungi (q.v.). Their vegetative body, unlike any fungoid thallus, is a naked irregular mass of protoplasm known as a plasmodium, which is formed by the coalescence of ciliated zoospores. These zoospores, like the plasmodium, are irregular in form, and possess the power of putting out finger-like processes or pscudopodia, moving by a