Botanical Notes. 55 



of the carboy first attracted attention. Investigation showed 

 a mass of rather nodose mycelium, chains or groups of cells 

 of very unequal size, but all more or less spherical in outhne. 

 One was reminded of Torula or some saccharomycetous fun- 

 gus, except that the number of cells adherent was so much 

 greater. Each mass seemed evidently a colony, the outcome 

 from a single spore, but every thing was distorted and irregu- 

 lar as if the plant labored under the most disadvantageous con- 

 ditions. With a view to a possible determination of the spe- 

 cies, three of the colonies were transferred with greatest care 

 from the acid to a plate of sterilized gelatin and placed in a 

 moist chamber, every precaution being taken to insure a pure 

 culture. In about forty-eight hours a vigorous growth was 

 manifest from each colony and in a few days each was per- 

 fectly green with the fruit of Penicillium ghmciini. The tufts 

 were lower than ordinary and the spores were smaller, but 

 the branching of the hypha^ and the spore-formation were 

 sufficiently characteristic. About the time when the green 

 color first appeared a new centre of growth was to be seen 

 on the gelatin plate. This proved to be also PenicilHum, and 

 presently produced abundant fruit of the ordinary size and 

 kind. A second culture from spores of the first gave again 

 colonies of Penicillium with spores of the usual sort. Jt would 

 seem that the growth in Hydrochloric acid represented simply 

 the distorted or depauperate mycelium of the common and 

 universal green mould. Similar mycehal developments are 

 reported as occurring in certain organic acids as Phosphoric 

 acid etc., but Hydrochloric would seem to afford conditions 

 unfavorable even to a fungus. The acid was 3.6 per cent so- 

 lution. 



