Scopulariopsis Species Research Articles

A New Species of Microascus with a Scopulariopsis Stage

During the fall of 1931, Doctor D. C. Smith, Professor of Dermatology and Syphology at the University of Virginia, gave me some dermatophyte cultures growing on Sabauraud's media. He had obtained a fungus in December, 1931, from an infection showing eruptions involving the hands and forearm and it was from the culture of this fungus that I found what I believe to be a new species of Scopulariopsis. On Sabauraud's media the surface growth of this new species was smooth with a whitish growth becoming grayish mealy with the formation of conidia and then turning black with the formation of the ascocarps. The colonies were restricted in extent and became wrinkled and raised above the surface of the agar. One could not consider this a surface growth as a number of the hyphae penetrated one fourth of an inch into the agar. There was very little or no growth on dextrose-tartaric acid media. In my study of dermatophytes, I have found that those within my experience grow better in Knop's solution in a sterile moist chamber than on agar media. Consequently, the study of all stages of the above fungus except the cross section of the perithecial stage, was made from culture grown on Sabauraud's media. The perithecia develop abundantly, however, in Knop's solution.

DEEP SCOPULARIOPSOSIS OF ULCERATING GRANULOMA TYPE CONFIRMED BY CULTURE AND ANIMAL INOCULATION

Scopulariopsis is a genus of fungi closely related botanically to Penicillium. It differs therefrom mainly in the fact that the fruit head is less complex. Thus, whereas in Penicillium large numbers of branching conidiophores, each surmounted by a chain of conidia, extend from the main stem, in Scopulariopsis the number of such conidiophores is limited to four or five, or a conidiophore may be solitary. The end-result is thus only a partial approach to the formation of the classic brushlike aggregation of conidial chains which is so characteristic of Penicillium. However, in other respects Scopulariopsis closely resembles Penicillium, with its shorter or longer chains of conidia extending singly or in groups from the tips of conidiophores. Indeed, future studies may confirm a suspicion that Scopulariopsis is but a degraded form of Penicillium, as the synonymous designation, Penicillium brevicaule, indicates. Species of Scopulariopsis are widely distributed in

The Ascocarpic Stage of Species of Scopulariopsis

The Ascocarpic Stage of Species of Scopulariopsis

The Ascocarpic Stage of Species of Scopulariopsis

The asexual fructifications of ascomycetes are as often as not misleading when it comes to determining relationships. Monilia may be the conidial stage of certain species of Sclerotinia, a discomycete, on the one hand, or it may be connected with species of Neurospora, a pyrenomycete, on the other. Botrytis may be the asexual stage of certain other species of Sclerotinia in one case, but be connected with a Lachnea, quite a different type of discomycete, in another case. Much of our knowledge of the morphology of the ascocarp of Aspergillus and Penicillium dates back to the time of de Bary, Zukal and Brefeld, and to the cytological work of Fraser and Chambers and of Dale. The group Plectascales may be a heterogeneous one including forms of doubtful relationship. Should Thielavia as represented by T. basicola and T. terricola be included along with Aspergillus in this group? Neither species of Thielavia has a conidial stage and their carbonaceous ascocarps are quite unlike those of either Aspergillus or Penicillium. The disposition of the ascogenous hyphae and asci is such, however, as to suggest in a general way a relationship. The writers have recently had under observation two species of ascomycetes which in the manner of the origin and develop? ment of the ascogenous hyphae and asci, taken in connection [Mycologia for July-August (23: 147-311) was issued July 1, 1931] 313