Rhizopodial state predominant; cells naked, amoeboid, solitary or occasionally forming loose aggregates, sometimes with a very short anterior flagellum and a second reduced flagellum visible only by electron microscopy; amoeboid cells readily transform to Chromulina-like motile stages with a longer anterior flagellum; rhizopodia usually retracted or only a few remaining in this stage; intermediate stages common; rhizopodia granulate, slender, sometimes branched, generally all in same plane; chloroplasts 1-2; eyespot and/or pyrenoids present in some species; contractile vacuoles 1-8; phagotrophic nutrition rarely observed; reproduction by division of amoeboid stage; stomatocysts known; several species in freshwater, at least one species (C. radians) also occurring on soil and one species (C. nana) marine; rhizopodial species of which no flagellate stages are known, have sometimes been placed in a separate genus, Rhizochrysis.