TAXONOMY 
261 
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/* 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 Thom.) 
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. 
Aspergillus oryzce 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 
