Bacillus, 29 



41. B. Amylobacter, Van Tieghem {Bull. Soc. Bot. 

 France, xxiv.). 

 \Clostridium butyricum, Prazmowski.] 

 Morphologically like B. subtilis, but distinguished by 

 the fact that at certain times it contains starch in its cells, 

 which can be easily recognised by the blue colour produced 

 on the addition of iodine. 



In the cells of laticiferous plants, in decaying plant 

 infusions, etc. 



According to Van Tieghem's first communications, this species is 

 the cause of cellulose-fermentation. Afterwards B. Amylobacter (and 

 not B. subtilis) was indicated by him and Prazmowski (JBot, Zeitung, 

 1879, No. 26) as the ferment of butyric fermentation (Vibrion butyrique 

 of Pasteur). According to Prazmowski, B. Amylobacter is especially 

 and essentially distinguished from B. subtilis by the mode of germina- 

 tion of the spores. The germinating thread in the former species is 

 protruded, not at the equator, but at one of the poles of the sphere. 

 But it appears to me inadvisable to found a new species on this dis- 

 tinction, as Prazmowski desires. 



[As little is known about B. Amylobacter in England, I append a 

 passage of Van Tieghem concerning it, translated from the Bulletin of 

 the Societe Botanique de France, 1880, p. 284: "Ordinarily, as we 

 know, when B. Amylobacter attacks starch-containing parenchyma, it 

 first dissociates the cells by dissolving their intermediate lamellae ; then 

 it causes the membranes of the cells thus separated to swell up, and 

 dissolves them by degrees, without attacking the granules of starch 

 which they enclose (as in potato, bean, etc.). In Adoxa Moschatellina 

 it is quite different. The Amylobacter still begins, it is true, by de- 

 stroying the intermediate lamellae, and separating the cells, the puncta- 

 tions of which " (he is speaking of the sub-epidermal layer of the 

 rhizome, macerating in water) " are then open to the outside. Pene- 

 trating into the cavity by one of these punctations, it proceeds to 

 develop itself there among the starch granules. At the same time it 

 attacks these granules, and causes them by degrees to disappear, 

 without exercising any action upon the cellulose membrane.. When it 

 has completely dissolved and absorbed the grains of starch within the 

 cell, the Amylobacter forms a brilliant spore in each of its articulations, 

 and disappears. With its membrane unaltered, and the mass of spores 

 which fills it, the cell then fulfils the part of a sporangium." According 



