Species of Monilia and Torula from Food Products

Abstract

Species of Monilia and Torula have long been recognized in mycological literature as damaging to food products. For example, Monilia sitophila (Mont.) Sacc. has caused massive spoilage of bakery goods in France, Germany, and other countries. I have often isolated this species in the Ukraine from such products as macaroni, grain, bread, hops in breweries and from air in mills. Species of Monilia and Torula also develop in strong solutions of salts and sugars, and even on undissolved salts and sugars. C. A. Brown (2) isolated from raw cuban sugar fungi which he described as Monilia nigra and M. fusca. Van Beyma (1) isolated from crystals of NaCl a fungus which he described as Oospora halophila. This fungus could develop only on media which contained at least 50% NaCl. P. A. Saccardo, according to Lindau (6), isolated a fungus from damp sugar and described it as Oospora saccharina. Malevich (7) isolated a fungus from salted fish which she described as Oospora nikitinskii. This fungus was unable to develop on media which have less than 5% NaCl. Rudakov et al. (11 ) isolated Torula pulchra Tonywall from condensed sweet milk, and identified it as Catenularia fuliginea Saito. This fungus caused a large scale contamination of canned milk in Moscow, resulting in economic losses through the formation of brown button-like clumps. Similar damage to canned milk, according to Harris (5), is caused by Monilia niger (?), Aspergillus glaucus and Penicillium sp. According to Rudakov et al., Torula pulchra developed well even in a 63% sucrose solution and was somewhat inhibited by a 65.5% solution. Osmophilic properties are not only characteristic of species of Monilia and Torula but of some other species of mold fungi as well. Tanaka and Miller (12) studied microbial spoilage of dried prunes and determined that aside from yeasts good osmophilic properties were also shown by species of the Aspergillus glaucus group. Less osmotolerant were A. niger and Penicillium sp. The study of the new species described here was done by the methods described in my previous article (9). Type cultures of the new