Description of Mycetozoa

Mycetozoa is used here is a broad sense, and includes organisms which may be amoeboid, amoebo-flagellate, or plasmodial; amoebae and amoebo-flagellate staes can encyst; under appropriate conditions of light, nutrition and humidity they can form fruiting bodies that rise above the substratum and support one of more aerial spores, the fruiting body stalks may be cellular or acellular; sporangia may have ancillary sterile elements or may be merely an assemblage of spores within a sporangial wall, or spores may be formed in uniseriate chains covered with a slime sheath, with or without dichotomous branching (Guttulinia); free-living, heterotrophic organisms are found almost anywhere organic material is located; on rotting logs, soil, living trees and herbaceous plants, and similar habitats.