DESCRIPTIVE CHART SOCIETY OF AMERICAN BACTERIOLOGISTS 1 



GLOSSARY OF TERMS 



Agar Hanging Block, a small block of nutrient agar cut from a poured plate, and placed 

 on a cover-glass, the surface next the glass having been first touched with a loop from 

 a young fluid culture or with a dilution from the same. It is examined upside down, 

 the same as a hanging rock. 



Ameboid, assuming various shapes like an ameba. 

 Amorphous, without visible differentiation in structure. 

 Arborescent, a branched, tree-like growth. 



Beaded, in stab or stroke, disjointed or semi-confluent colonies along the line of inocula- 

 tion. 



Brief, a few days, a week. 



Brittle, growth dry, friable under the platinum needle. 

 Bullate, growth rising in convex prorninences, like a blistered surface. 

 Butyrous, growth of a butter-like consistency. 

 Chains, short chains, composed of 2 to 8 elements. Long chains, composed of more than 



8 elements. 



Ciliate, having fine hair-like extensions, like cilia. 

 Cloudy, said of fluid cultures which do not contain pseudozooglea. 

 Coagulation, the separation of casein from whey in milk. This may take place quickly 

 or slowly, and as the result either of the formation of an acid or of a lab ferment. 

 Contoured, an irregular, smoothly, undulating surface, like that of a relief map. 

 Convex, surface the segment of a circle, but flattened. 

 Coprophyl, dung bacteria. 



Coriaceous, growth tough, leathery, not yielding to the platinum needle. 

 Crateriform, round, depressed, due to the liquefaction of the medium. 

 Cretaceous, growth opaque and white, chalky. 



Curled, composed of parallel chains in wavy strands, as in anthrax colonies. 

 Diastasic Qction, same as Diastatic, conversion of starch into water-soluble substances by 



diastase. 

 Echinulate, in agar stroke a growth along the line of inoculation, with toothed or 



pointed margins; in sag cultures growth beset with pointed outgrowths. 

 Effuse, growth thin, veily, unusually spreading. 

 Entire, smooth, having a margin destitute of teeth or notches. 

 Erase, border irregularly toothed. 



Filamentous, growth composed of long, irregularly placed or interwoven filaments. 

 Filiform, in stroke or stab cultures a uniform growth along line of inoculation. 

 Fimbriate, border fringed with slender processes, larger than filaments. 

 Floccose, growth composed of short curved chains, variously oriented. 

 Flocculent, said of fluids which contain pseudozooglea, i.e., small adherent masses of 



bacteria of various shapes and floating in the culture fluid. 



Fluorescent, having one color by transmitted light and another by reflected light. 

 Gram's Stain, a method of differential bleaching after gentian-violet, methyl-violet, etc. 

 The + mark is to be given only when the bacteria are deep blue or remain blue after 

 counterstaining with Bismarck brown. 

 Grumose, clotted. 



1 Prepared by F. D. Chester, F. P. Gorham, Erwin F. Smith, Committee on 

 Methods of Identification of Bacterial Species. Endorsed by the Society for general use 

 at the annual meeting, January, 1908. 



