1901} '/ MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 25 
is in itself very vascular. If a yellow granule be placed 
- unstained in a little water on a slide and the cover-glass 
be gently pressed upon it, it will be seen under a low 
power to be made up of rounded masses which are yellow- 
ish on the circumference, but less colored in the centre. 
Under a high power the centre is seen to consist of a 
densely felted mass of threads which is called the mycel- 
ium, and the circumference to contain the so-called clubs | 
which, from their radiated arrangement, have given the 
name to the fungus. 
In some cases, however, these are not to be seen. It 
must not be supposed that the mycelium is made up of 
well-defined threads like the mycelium of a mould or a _ 
mushroom. It consists of extremely delicate branched 
threads in which a double outline is scarcely to be distin- 
guished, and which sometimes appear to be made up only 
of chains of cocci, which has suggested the latest name 
for the organism, “streptothrix actinomyces.” » We are 
told that the organism is easily grown on various media 
and that it then consists at first of these threads, which 
after sometime end in chains of: streptothrix, which are 
supposed to constitute the spores of the fungus. At all 
events these, if transferred to another medium, bud out 
into the threads of the so-called mycelium. The clubs are 
very seldom if ever produced in artificial cultures. In old 
cultures bulbous ends to the threads are sometimes ob- 
served, and it is held that the clubs are only produced 
when the organism is growing under difficulties, 
Although it is practically certain that the organism 
grows on cereals and grass, very little is known of life- 
history as a vegetable parasite. It is, however, quite cer- 
tain that it gains access to the bodies of men and beasts 
on pieces of corn or grass which either stick in the teeth, 
or mouth, or are swallowed or inhaled—the moral of which 
ought to be, that we should give up the tempting habit 
of chewing fresh corn, sucking straws or putting pieces 
