The whole of the middle lamella or originally formed cell-wall separating one from another disappears before the adult state is reached, so that the walls of the hydroids consist of a framework of lignified bars, with open communication between the cell cavities.
Such gums are formed abundantly in pycnidia, and, absorbing water, swell and carry out the spores in long tendrils, which emerge for days and dry as they reach the air, the glued spores gradually being set free by rain, wind, &c. In oidial chains (Sclerotinia) a minute double wedge of wall-substance arises in the middle lamella between each pair of contiguous oidia, and by its enlargement splits the separating lamella.
Endophytic parasites may be intracellular, when the fungus or its mycelium plunges into the cells and destroys their contents directly (Olpidium, Lagenidium, Sclerotinia, &c.), but they are far more frequently intercellular, at any rate while young, the mycelium growing in the lacunae between the cells (Peronospora, Uredineae) into which it may send short (Cystopus), or long and branched (Peronospora Calotheca) haustoria, or it extends in the middle lamella (Ustilago), or even in the solid substance of the cell-wall (Botrytis).
The work of van Tieghem, van Senus, Fribes, Omeliansky and others has now shown that while certain anaerobic bacteria decompose the substance of the middle lamella - chiefly pectin compounds - and thus bring about the isolation of the cellulose fibres when, for instance, flax is steeped or " retted," they are unable to attack the cellulose itself.
The thin line between adjacent cell walls is the middle lamella.
