

ACTINOMYCETES. 127 



candidly as low hyphomycetes, l as was done for the first 

 time in the first edition of this book, in 1896. Kruse has 

 placed the actinomyces, together with its nearest relatives, 

 in a family of hyphomycetes, " streptotrichese, " while he 

 still speaks of a Bacillus tuberculosis, etc. Recently, 

 Lachner-Sandoval has introduced the name actinomycetes 

 to designate the group of ' ' fission-fungi closely related to 

 the hyphomycetes " (as we had designated them in the 

 first edition), and until we have something better it 

 answers for practical purposes. 



SUPPLEMENT I. 

 Actinomycetes (Lachner-Sandoval) . 



Delicately threaded organisms, free of chlorophyll, with 

 true branching, in part very abundantly ramifying myce- 

 lium, partly with the formation of conidia. Young cul- 

 tures often present only unbranched rods resembling bac- 

 teria, which can in no way be differentiated from ordinary 

 fission-fungi. According to many authors there is a ten- 

 dency to the formation of clubs or knobs at the ends of 

 the threads. 



1. Microscopic: Slender often somewhat bent rods, often 

 with a tendency to a clubbed swelling of the ends, branches 

 rarely observed in young cultures, easily broken off, and 

 often difficult to find also in old cultures. Always non- 

 motile; never conidia. 



a. Rods stain interruptedly (striped) with weak stain - 

 ing-solutions, since the organism is composed of parts with 

 different staining properties. Not stained by the method 



1 As hyphomycetes there have been designated for a long time in 

 botany a large number of threaded fungi, of which nothing is known 

 except threads and non-sexual spores that are upon threads or 

 special carriers. The group is constantly growing smaller, as many 

 earlier "hyphomycetes" have become known as members of the 

 sharply characterized groups of fungi (ascomycetes, zygomycetes, 

 basidiomycetes). The actinomycetes appear to form an entire nat- 

 ural group of the "hyphomycetes." 



