CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION OF SPECI1>. IM 



Zopf, however, does not assert that all the fission-fungi cxliil.it 

 this pleoinorphism, nor does he pretend that his classitir.it ion will 

 include all the micro-organisms described. Colin, on the other 

 hand, was ready to admit that all the forms described by him were 

 not truly independent species. De Bary, Hueppe, Baumgarten, and 

 Fliigge have expressed other views with regard to the classification 

 of bacteria. 



De Bary divides them into two great groups bacteria which 

 form endospores, and bacteria which form arthrospores. This 

 affords but little practical assistance, though regarded by 

 botanists, from a scientific standpoint, a* a step in tin- rL'ht 

 direction. 



Hueppe, acknowledging that the fructification must eventually 

 be made the basis for classification, suggests an arranireinent for 

 provisional use in which this view is introduced (p. 482). 



It has already been mentioned that the production of arthrospores 

 is only established in a very few species. Therefore, we are 

 hardly justified in assuming that all bacteria, the spore-formation 

 of which is quite unknown, are to be included with those in which 

 this kind of fructification has been observed, and consequently to 

 distinguish genera on the same grounds may be considered, to 

 the least, somewhat premature. In Baumgarten's <-].iiti -ation the 

 genus bacterium is dispensed with, and the genera divided into two 

 groups, the monomorphic and the pleomorphic. 



GROUP I. MONOMORPHIC. 



Genera. Coccus. 

 Bacillus. 

 Spirillum. 



GROUP II. PLEOMORPHIC. 



Genera. Spirulina. 

 Leptothrix. 

 Cladothrix. 



Fliigge also, in his revised classification, includes the genus 

 bacterium in the genus bacillus. The new clairicati..n differs 

 also from the original one in the grouping together ,,f the dilV- 

 species according to the character and behaviour of tin- ooi 

 in nutrient gelatine. The abolition, in Fliigge'6 and liaum-ar 

 classification, of the genus bacterium is no doubt owini: to OOoft 

 having arisen from the distinction, between a bacterium an 

 bacillus, being made to depend upon length. Observer^ differed 

 as to whether a rod of a certain length ought to be considered a 



