Observations on Lagenidium Callinectes: Isolation and Sporangial Development

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Abstract
A strain of Lagenidium callinectes, isolated from the ova of crabs collected in the Newport Estuary, North Carolina, was brought into agar culture and studied with regard to growth and sporogenesis. The vegetative thallus consists of both intramatrical hyphae, which may completely fill infected ova, and extramatrical hyphae, which may grow from egg to egg or function in the discharge of cytoplasm prior to spore formation. In sporogenesis, the cytoplasm from a given septum-delineated portion of the thallus migrates through a specilized, nonbranched, extramatrical hypha or discharge tube into a gelatinous vesicle that forms at the hyphal or tube tip. The cytoplasm does not flow as one continuous mass, but rather as individual cytoplasmic units that are connected in sequence by a cytoplasmic thread. Cleavage of the cytoplasm occurs inside the vesicle with subsequent spore discharge through a break at the distal end of the vesicle. Once released, the spores swim away immediately.