406 TOKTJLACEyE. 



So far as our knowledge of the red budding fungi extends at 

 present, none of them possesses any great practical importance, 

 except the case mentioned by Demme (see p. 402), though they 

 are able, occasionally, to give rise to very unpleasant phenomena. 

 WILL (XXXIII.) cites an instance where such organisms coloured 

 a whole batch of green malt red, their reproduction having appa- 

 rently been greatly stimulated by peculiar circumstances. When 

 dried, the malt turned a dirty brown colour, and the cured malt 

 had an unsightly, discoloured appearance. The infection was 

 traceable to the water used for steeping the barley. Beer wort is 

 partially decolorised both by the pink yeast observed by L. van 

 den Hulle and H. van Laer in Lambic, and also by the red 

 Torula of Janssens and Mertens, the former yeast also imparting 

 a sour taste to the wort. These properties, however, are of little 

 practical importance, the red budding fungi and Torula species 

 being suppressed by the rapidly multiplying and fermenting beer 

 yeasts ; and, even if they survive the fermentation process, the 

 extent to which the water is decolorised by the beer yeast itself 

 cannot be increased very much by the action of the red budding 

 fungi. 



Black yeast has also been reported upon occasionally. The 

 fungus isolated by C. MARPMANN (VI.) from milk, and termed 

 Saccharomyces niger by him, forms round to oval cells, measuring 

 1.5-3 /* an ^ reproducing by budding. No mycelial filaments are 

 produced in saccharine nutrient solutions. On gelatin, the 

 fungus forms velvety black herbages, and in nutrient solutions 

 black deposits. Saccharose and lactose are not fermented, though 

 grape sugar is to a small extent. According to B. H. BUXTON (L), 

 the fungus does not contain either diastase, maltase, invertase, 

 lactase or inulase. HANSEN (LIV.) has demonstrated that Saccha- 

 romyces niger does not sporulate, and is therefore no true Saccha- 

 romyces. According to him, the dark-coloured budding fungi 

 belong to various species, all of them agreeing in being 

 asporogenic and incapable of fermentation. He considers them 

 to be, probably, budding forms of Cladosporium or Fumago 

 species; and this view is supported by P. LINDNER (XXXIV.) 

 who states that, whilst the young cultures of black yeast grown in 

 Koch's laboratory formed a pad consisting of bud cells, they 

 subsequently developed into dark green herbages composed of 

 hyphse. Apparently Marpmann's black yeast differs from that 

 of Koch. The Torula nigra of GUILLIERMOND (IV.) grows luxu- 

 riantly on carrots, so that, twenty-four hours after sowing, the 

 substratum is covered with a sticky, blackish green mass, composed 

 entirely of oval and slightly elongated bud cells, held together 

 by a mucinous mass exhibiting isolated black, solid particles. 

 After a few days the less damp portions of the nutrient medium 

 exhibit a thin mycelium, arising out of the black mass of yeast, 

 and assuming the shape of a grey, matted felt. In Guilliermond's 



