284 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [NOVEMBER 
inoculation, showed only one type of colony, and this proved to 
consist of the organism with which the plugs had been inoculated. 
The organism had no appreciable effect on the nut strip above the 
water, and the strip in the water was only very slowly decomposed, 
but strips in cornmeal bouillon were completely destroyed within 
ten to fifteen days. The organism grows best in the presence of 
air, as the colonies on all plated media and stab culture show, but 
deep lenticular colonies (fig. 40), and colonies next to the glass 
(fig. 39) in agar plates, as well as the faint line of growth along 
the stab, indicate that it is a facultative anaerobe. 
While none of the usual tests for particular enzymes was 
made, the reactions in different culture media indicate the produc- 
tion of diastase, invertase, rennet, and pepsin. In Brazil nut agar 
plates there is formed a transparent halo about the colony, and as 
the opacity of the agar is due to the presence of solid proteid matter 
(20), the halo results from the digesting of these proteids. There 
is an abundant secretion of the protease which makes the halo, 
as the diameter of the transparent area is from two to three times 
that of the colony itself. This enzyme was precipitated as already 
described, and drops of a water solution of the dried precipitate 
placed on Brazil nut agar plates. A transparent area as large as 
the drop of solution was formed in a plate 2 mm. thick in from two 
to three hours. 
The organism seems to be an undescribed one, and a complete 
description of it will be given in a separate paper. 
6. ACTINOMYCES DECAY 
GENERAL DESCRIPTION AND MORPHOLOGY.—Empty shells that 
are intact and still retain their normal color are occasionally found 
among Brazil nuts. When these shells are cracked open a char- 
acteristic musty odor is evident, and the inner shell wall is seen 
to be covered with pinkish velvety pustules that are from one to 
several millimeters in diameter. Water mounts of pieces of a 
pustule show tenuous, mycelial-like strands, or chains of spores 
which readily stain with carbol-fuchsin. The filaments are not 
long but branch, and the mass is so bound together by the branches 
that it is quite impossible to separate entire filaments from the mass. 
