THE ASPERGILLUS GLAUCUS GROUP 143 



walls 0.5 to 1.5m in thickness and splitting lengthwise as A. niger 

 when broken; vesicles 15 to 4G>, globose or subglobose (fig. 28, D); sterie- 

 matain 1 series 8 to 9 /x by 1.5 to 2 p\ conidiamore or less pyriform, 4.3 to 5m 

 by 3.5 to 4/x, finely echinulate, of the A . glaucus type. 



Diagnosis is drawn from culture NRRL No. 161 (No. 5344 of Thorn) re- 

 ceived from Westerdijk as the type of Kinoshita's A. itaconicus and agrees 

 closely with the description given by Wehmer for A . varians (cf . Thorn and 

 Church, The Aspergilli, p. 127, 1926), not with Thorn and Church's descrip- 

 tion of their culture No. 115 which was subsequently lost. A. itaconicus 

 is so closely related in its physiological responses and in several of its struc- 

 tural characters to the A. glaucus group that it is placed as an ex- 

 treme variant at the end of this whole group. 



Kinoshita described his organism as a producer of itaconic acid (1931a) 

 and detailed his experimental work (1931b). The culture as distributed to 

 laboratories outside of Japan seems to conform to Kinoshita's description 

 and to produce the acid, but in quantities too small for commercial develop- 

 ment. More recently, Calam, Oxford, and Raistrick (1939) have recovered 

 itaconic acid as a metabolic product of A. terreus. From an industrial 

 point of view, this source appears to be far more promising. 



VARIATION IN THE ASPERGILLUS GLAUCUS GROUP 



The genetic history of the Aspergilli is an untouched field. Separation 

 into large groups is easily made definite enough to include all but a few 

 strains. Within these groups, variation is so great that differentiation of 

 species requires critical examination and comparison of material, including 

 extensive culture. Unwilling to undertake this, Neill (1939) disposed of 

 the whole group with yellow perithecia by calling them all A. glaucus. On 

 the other hand, Mangin (1909), with the same problem of variability before 

 him, found the ascospores sufficiently distinctive and dependable to warrant 

 proposing to separate A . amstelodami and A . chevalieri as separate species 

 in the A. glaucus group, leaving certain aggregates admittedly inadequately 

 studied. Bainier and Sartory (1911b, 1911c, 1912), working with members 

 of these ill-defined species, used color production as the basis for separation. 

 They cited ascospore measurements as incidental details in description. 

 Because they appear to have had only a few strains in culture and to have 

 described them all as new species, the task presented few difficulties to 

 them; but unfortunately without the original cultures, no one has ever been 

 able to identify their species with confidence. Raistrick and his colleagues 

 (1934, 1937, 1938, 1939), using cultures named as received and including 

 an unpublished series from Biourge, have given quantitiative figures as to 

 pigment production and pigment mixtures for each culture listed by the 

 name on the tube, without reporting comparative study of the morphology 

 found. 



