MOLDS IX TEXTILE AND WOOD PRODUCTS 255 



and cause of spoilage of Camembert cheese and other dairy products. 

 It may be found, along with other molds, in corks, and may give rise 

 to very disagreeable odors in bottled products which have been 

 stoppered with such contaminated corks, without any evidence of 

 mold growth in the product itself. 



MOLDS IN TEXTILE AND WOOD PRODUCTS 



It is not surprising that molds, because of their ubiquity and their 

 ability to grow under adverse conditions, should be found in tex- 

 tiles. They may develop, under what would be considered unfavor- 

 able conditions for growth, to cause discoloration of fabrics or to 

 lower the tensile strength of the material. They have been found ca- 

 pable of affecting either the raw fibers or the finished fabrics. 



As would be expected, the filamentous fungi found associated 

 with cotton are largely those found in soil, Cladosporium, Fusarium, 

 Alternaria, Sporotrichum, Aspergillus, and Penicillium.*' The molds 

 found on fresh samples of raw cotton were capable of utilizing cellu- 

 lose and starch as the sole source of carbon more readily than those 

 found in stored samples. Thaysen and Bunker ^^ present evidence 

 that seems to indicate that cottons vary in their resistance to micro- 

 bial activity as the origin of the samples varies. They found that 

 of the three types tested the American cotton was the most resistant, 

 followed closely by the Egyptian samples; those from India were the 

 least resistant. 



The term mildew is applied to the growth of fungi on fibers and 

 fabrics ; it results in discoloration and sometimes in the weakening or 

 even disintegration of the material on which the growths occur. One 

 hundred and eighty molds isolated from mildewed fabric have been 

 described by Galloway.-° Often, the mildew patches on textiles are 

 brightly colored, being black, brown, yellow, green, or pink, depend- 

 ing on the color of the conidiospores and the pigments secreted by 

 the molds. If the development of the fungi is allowed to proceed 

 unchecked, the cotton material suffers what is termed tendering 

 (weakening of the fibers) . Another way in which discoloration may 

 occur is by the growth of the fungi on unprocessed fibers and, by 

 giving off acids, changing the pH of the material. During the subse- 

 quent processing which may require dyeing, the color does not go 

 on the material uniformly, owing to local changes in pH. Often, 

 organisms found on mildewed fabrics are incapable of utilizing 

 cellulose. These molds are, however, capable of developing on the 

 starch in the size, thereby satisfying their carbon requirement. 



