CAROTINOIDS IN THE CRYPTOGAMS 119 



fied in the animal kingdom under the name Mycetozoa. The plants 

 an 1 nakrd masses of protoplasm, f:il!i'd plasmndia, which exhibit many 

 beautiful colors as shown in Lister's well-known work on the slime 

 molds. Carotinoids are probably rare in this group, although this 

 statement may be hasty inasmuch a.s very few species have been 

 examined. Carotinoids do not appear to be present in Arcyria punicea 

 IVrs. and Ar. nutuns Blill. or in Acthaiium scpticum Fr., a species of 

 Fuligo Scptica the well-known "Flowers of Tan"- according to the 

 observations of Schroeter (1875), Zopf (1892b) and Bachmann (1886). 

 Carotinoids do appear to be present, however, in Stemonitis ferru- 

 yinca, Stemonitis jusca, Lycogala epidendron and Lycogala flavo- 

 fuscum, judging from the observations of Zopf (1889b) who made a 

 special study of the possible presence of lipochromes in Myxomycetes. 

 In no case was lipochrome found to be the only pigment present, 

 although absolute alcohol was found to extract completely the color 

 from the carrot-red plasmodia and fruits of L. epidendron. In each 

 case an unsaponifiable lipochrome was isolated showing the color 

 reaction with concentrated sulfuric acid. The measurements of the 

 position of the absorption bands of the lipochrome of each species as 

 iv| >orted by Zopf indicate a xanthophyll-like pigment in the case of 

 Stemonitis, but carotin in the case of Lycogala. These observations 

 might well be amplified by others, carried out in the light of our 

 present knowledge of the Carotinoids. 



The Imperfect Fungi. There is evidence that Carotinoids are pres- 

 ent in a few species of this large group of fungi whose exact classi- 

 fication has not yet been determined. 



Zopf (1889c) states that the pigment which can be extracted with 

 fat solvents from Cephalothecium gives the blue lipocyan crystals 

 with sulfuric acid. Several of the fungi which gave positive evidence 

 of Carotinoids microchemically in van Wisselingh's study (1915) be- 

 long in the group of imperfects. For example, Monilia sitophila 

 (Mont.) Dace, gave red crystals in the Molisch test; Aspergillus 

 giganteus, which has an orange-yellow mycelium, gave a positive test; 

 Torula rubra also gave the reaction, but Torula cinnabarina failed to 

 do so; although a color reaction was secured using SbCl a . 



Carotinoids in Bacteria 



The importance of bacteria as a means of determining some of the 

 true functions of Carotinoids in plants, or at least of fixing the con- 



