TAXONOMY 



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fleshy drugs which have not been properly dried. It has also been 

 observed on dried herbarium material, old extracts, on jams, jellies, 

 tobacco, cotton-seed meal, old leather, stale black bread, etc. Like 

 Penicillium its vegetative body consists of a mycelium consisting of 

 aerial and submerged hyphae. It differs from Penicillium, however, 

 mainly in not possessing septated conidiophores and by the upper 

 portion of the conidiophores being globular. Upon the globular 

 extremity of the conidiophores are placed numerous elongated sterig- 

 mata which bear chains of grayish-green conidia. These are spher- 

 ical and prickly and range from 7 to 30/4 in diameter. Under certain 



FIG. 134. Penicillium brevicaule. a, Conidiophores and simple chains of con- 

 idiospores; b,f, more complex conidial fructifications; c, two young chains of con- 

 idiospores; d, e, echinulate conidiospores; g, h, j, sketches of forms and habits of 

 conidial fructifications; k, germinated conidiospores. (After Thorn.) 



conditions closed brownish fruit bodies called perithecia are produced. 

 These arise on the surface of the substratum from spirally coiled 

 hyphae and when mature possess numerous asci, each of which con- 

 tains five to eight ellipsoidal ascospores. 



Aspergittus oryza is a yellowish-green to brown mold which 

 secretes diastase, a valuable digestive ferment, having the power of 

 converting starch into sugar and dextrin. For centuries the Japa- 

 nese have employed this species in the preparation of rice mash for 



