ACTINOMYCETES. 127 



candidly as low hyphomycetes, ^ 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 abiindantly 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 



'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, zygomj'cetes, 

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

 ural group of the ' ' hyphomycetes. ' ' 



