Myxomycetes

• WordNet 3.6
  • n Myxomycetes the class of true slime molds; essentially equivalent to the division Myxomycota
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• • n. pl Myxomycetes (Bot) A class of peculiar organisms, the slime molds, formerly regarded as animals (Mycetozoa), but now generally thought to be plants and often separated as a distinct phylum (Myxophyta); essentially equivalent to the division Myxomycota. They are found on damp earth and decaying vegetable matter, and consist of naked masses of protoplasm, often of considerable size, which creep very slowly over the surface and ingest solid food.
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• • n myxomycetes A group of fungus-like organisms, the slime-molds or slime-fungi, belonging, according to the classification of De Bary, to the Mycetozoa, and numbering about 300 species. They form slimy yellow, brown, or purple (never green) masses of motile protoplasm during the period of active growth, and are then destitute of cell-wall and nucleus. Under certain conditions they secrete a cellulose wall and pass into a resting state. This resting state is brought about either by the absence of the requisite moisture, producing larger, somewhat irregular masses, the so-called sclerotium stage, or when the plasmodium seems to have concluded its vegetative period, the protoplasm then becoming heaped into a mass which breaks up internally into a large number of rounded bodies, the spores, each one of which is provided with a cell-wall. Under proper conditions these spores burst their walls and become motile nucleated masses of protoplasm (swarm-spores) which divide separately by simple fission. After a few days two or more of these swarm-spores coalesce and form new plasmodia, which differ only in size from the original. They occur on decaying logs, tan-bark, decaying mosses, etc. See Mycetozoa.
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• • n.pl Myxomycetes mik-sō-mī-sē′tēz a class of very simple organisms, often claimed by botanists as fungi, generally regarded by zoologists as primitive Protozoa, living on damp surfaces exposed to air, esp. on rotting wood, and feeding on organic débris forming composite masses or plasmodia.
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