Text - Rhodes University

"undergrounds" are classifiable together only because they sidestep other classifications,
whether this be because of methods of publication and production, or because of content.
A fragment of a novel called Like Mother (Diski, p.26-27), can supply a useful analogy:
Slime Mold
I read about Slime Molds in ... the Encyclopaedia Brittanica .... The next part
of the article concerned more developed forms of life and began: "Much
of the beauty and diversity of contemporary life on earth is due to sex."
Slime Molds exist in the soil of this planet. As many as a billion of them
exist in just 1 sq foot of earth. This is because they are very small.
The problem about slime molds is that it's very hard to decide if they are
plants or animals. To overcome this ambiguity, Haeckel, the German
taxonomist, invented the term 'protista', which was to designate them a
separate category from 'plantae' and 'animalia'. But this was merely a
cunning device to prevent people from spending too much time worrying
about the real problem that remained and remains unsolved: are slime
molds creatures or things? The answer is that they are neither and both.
But it's upsetting.
When slime molds ... begin their life cycle they veer towards being a lower
order of plant, at the fungal end of life. But we don't expect much of fungi,
so slime molds surprise us. Later, when they aggregate, creep, and feed,
they are more like animals. They do things, like go about in gangs.
To begin with, these are just single-celled amoeba, which .. .lead a solitary
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