YEAST-LIKE FUNGI OF HUMAN INTESTINAL TRACT 37 



Persoon. This is described by Persoon ('22-'28) as having dark- 

 colored spores, which character justifies later authors in placing this 

 genus in the Dematiaceae. Turpin ('38) studied the budding yeast 

 plants in beer and named them Torula cerevisiae. He had the impres- 

 sion that they were a stage in the life of a plant which, in the presence 

 of abundant oxygen gave first Mycoderma cerevisiae and later Peni- 

 cillium glaucum. Hansen and others have used Turpin's description as 

 a basis for including all asporogenic yeasts of this character in Torula. 



Sumstine ('13) and Vuillemin ('11) discuss at length the genus 

 Monilia from a taxonomic standpoint. The former states that, judging 

 from Persoon's description and synonymy, Monilia is congeneric with 

 Aspergillus and Penicillium. Vuillemin also holds that most of the 

 species originally included by Persoon under the genus Monilia have 

 been shown to belong to Aspergillus, Penicillium, or Torula. Fries 

 takes as the type of the genus, Mucor caespitosa Linn., which is the 

 same as Monilia digitata. This, from his description and the statements 

 of Persoon, is an Aspergillus, as the name itself would suggest. Thus 

 there is no doubt but that Fries had an Aspergillus-like fungus in mind 

 as the type of the genus Monilia. 



Vuillemin, however, taking Monilia fructigena as the type of the 

 genus tries to show that this is very similar to Monilia Candida 

 (M. Bonordenii Vuil.) in its process of spore formation, and in turn 

 he accept Plaut's ('87) conclusion that Monilia Candida is the same 

 as the thrush organism, Monilia (Oidium) albicans. He bases his con- 

 clusions on the fact that the spores of Monilia fructigena are blasto- 

 spores rather than conidiospores. Thus he attempts to justify placing 

 all the yeast-like fungi of the Oidium albicans type in the genus Monilia. 

 But anyone who has made a study of Monilia (Sclerotinia) cinerea and 

 fructigena is familar with the fact that they produce a distinct aerial 

 mycelium, and that the conidia are of fairly uniform size and germinate 

 by means of a true germ tube. All of these characters are lacking in 

 Oidium albicans. If Vuillemin's conclusions were in accord with the 

 rules of nomenclature, and we accepted Monilia fructigena as the type 

 of the genus, there would be sufficient basis for discarding it for the 

 yeast-like forms under discussion. On the other hand, if the type of 

 this genus is Aspergillus-like, then the forms under consideration could 

 not be included. 



The genus Oidium was founded by Link in 1809. Fries gives as the 

 type of this genus Mucor leprosus Linn., and as a synonym of this 

 Oidium aureum Link, thus accepting Link's type species. This fungus 



