ASPEBGILLACEAE 621 



The Aspergillaceae are largely saprophytes, although certain genera are 

 widely used in fermentations. Monascus is used to color rice red in Chinese 

 cookery ; Aspergillus is used in the making of soy bean sauces and in f ei-menta- 

 tions; Penicillium is important in curing cheese. The Aspergilli are important 

 as saprophytes and facultative parasites about the ear and the respiratory tract 

 of mammals, occasionally in other situations. Scopulariopsis often attacks the 

 nails. 



Key to Genera 



Peiitheuium flask-shaped, beaked or papillate. Microascus. 



Peritliecium with hairlike appendages, peridium compact. 



Appendages straight or nearly so, forming a hairy felt. Cephalotheca. 



Appendages of apically coiled hairs. Magnusia. 



Perithecium without appendages; peridium membranous or fleshy; peritliecium often absent. 

 Conidia borne directly on the mycelium. 



Hypnospores in chains. ' Thielavia. 



Hypnospores solitary. Bostrella. 



Conidia borne in chains; from specialized cells called phialides. 



Basal cell of conidiophore highly specialized, upper cell a swollen vesicle bearing one 



or two series of phialides. Aspergillus. 



Basal cell not differentiated, upper cell not swollen. 



Conidiophores occurring singly or in small groups; perithecia usually absent, 

 never stalked. 

 Phialides flask-shaped, straight, axis usually parallel to that of the metulae 

 upon which they are borne. 

 Chains of conidia not held together by secretion of a gel. 



Fenicillium. 

 Chain.s of conidia held together by secretion of a common gel, in some 

 species chains disappear, leaving only an irregular arrangement 

 in the gel. Gliocladium. 



Phialides flask-shaped, with long tapering neck of the flask at an angle to 



the main axis of the phialide. Paedlomyces. 



Phialides not flask-shaped but tapering gradually from base to apex. 



Scopulariopsis. 

 Conidia not in chains but adhering in subspheric masses. Allescheria. 



ASPERGILLUS 



Aspergillus Micheli, Nova plantarum genera 212. PI. 91, 1729, Link, Ob- 

 sei*vationes in ordines plantanim naturales, ]\Iag. Ges. Naturf. Freunde Berlin 

 3: 16, 17, 1809. 



The type species is Aspergillus glaucus Link. 



Vegetative mycelium consisting of septate branching hyphae, hyaline or 

 bright colored, or, in few forms, slowly brown in localized submerged areas or 

 producing brown sclerotia; conidial apparatus developed as stalks and heads 

 from specialized, enlarged, thick-walled hyphal cells (foot cells), producing 

 stalks as branches approximately perpendicular to the long axis of the foot 



