ORDER ASPERGILLALES (PLECTASCALES) 327 



thecium consists of one or two layers of cortical cells around the cavity- 

 enclosing numerous ellipsoid or globose ascospores, the interior perithecial 

 tissues and the walls of the eight-spored asci having dissolved rather early. 

 This was at first interpreted as a single many-spored ascus, hence the 

 name Monascus (meaning one ascus). One species is the "pink mold" 

 found in ensilage that was put into the silo in too dry condition. Other 

 species are used in the Orient for the fermentation of rice in the prepara- 

 tion of alcoholic beverages. (Fig. 104.) 



The genus Lilliputia was established by Boudier and Patouillard 

 (1900) for a fungus shown much later by Dennis and Wakefield (1946) to 

 be a member of this family and in which the conidial stage belongs to the 

 form genus Gliodadium. This resembles closely Penicilliu in but the conidia 

 are surrounded by a slimy exudate so that the branched "brush" at the 

 upper end of the main stalk of the conidiophore is involved in a glijstening 

 drop filled with hundreds of spores which early lose connection with one 

 another so that they appear to be single or at most only in short chains. 

 The perithecia are relatively large for the family, from 0.5 to 1.0 mm. in 

 diameter, with a thick firm cortical region and round to ovoid asci, each 

 containing eight large spherical, yellowish to brown ascospores which are 

 rough or prickly. The most common species is L. insignis (Wint.) Dennis 

 and Wakefield (1946) based on Eurotium insigne Wint. This occurs in 

 Europe and in the United States on various types of organic substrata, 

 such as dung of geese and kangaroos, dead seaweeds along the shore, and 

 old stable manure. Brefeld (1908) gave the name Lysipenicillnim to this 

 genus but it is antedated by Lilliputia. It must be noted that the asci and 

 ascospores are very similar to those of Terfezia to which Boudier and 

 Patouillard considered them closely related. This casts doubt on the cor- 

 rectness of transferring the Terfeziaceae to Order Tuberales. Magnusia 

 produces depressed globose -oblong, dark-colored perithecia with elon- 

 gated, apically circinate appendages arising from near the base. (Fig. 

 106 A.) 



Sexual reproduction has been studied in several members of this 

 family. Both Schikorra (1909) and Miss Young (1931) have studied this 

 process in Monascus. A slender plurinucleate antherid is produced at the 

 end of a hypha. Sympodially from the cell below arises the ascogonial 

 branch which bends so as to lie parallel to or to coil somewhat around the 

 antherid. A basal cell cuts this off from the main hypha and soon an 

 apical trichogyne cell is set off by another septum. The trichogyne and 

 oogone both contain several nuclei. An opening appears between the 

 trichogyne and antherid through which the nuclei of the latter pass, the 

 trichogyne nuclei having previously disappeared. The septum between 

 trichogyne and oogone dissolves out and the male nuclei pass into the 

 latter, the septum then being regenerated. The nuclei pair by twos in the 



