Unknowns Project 9

25 November 2012

On this day, I finally identified my last unknown. It came from the shower plates I have been isolating. The isolation on the water agar plate looked microscopically like Bipolaris sp., but not macroscopically.  On the water agar, growth was very dark and sparse (Fig. 1). Bipolaris sp. is supposed to be thick and cottony macroscopically. When observed under the microscope, this fungus looks very much like Bipolaris, which has brown conidiophores and conidia, and conidia that have many cells (Figs. 2-3). 

Fig. 1
Shower mold isolated on water agar

Fig. 2
Conidia of putative Bipolaris

Fig. 3
Conidiophore of putative Bipolaris

When viewing this fungus on PDA, however, the macroscopic characteristics are completely different (Fig. 4) while the microstructure remain the same (Figs. 5-7). To me, this looks very much like the pictures and drawings I have seen of Bipolaris, so I am sticking with that identification.

Fig. 4
Putative Bipolaris grown on PDA

Fig. 5
Bipolaris sp. conidia

Fig. 6
Bipolaris sp. conidiophores

Fig. 7
Bipolaris sp. conidiophores

The last thing I did on this day was make another round of isolations for all of my unknowns just to make sure that I have them in pure culture to turn in on Wednesday. All isolations were made on 1/2 strength PDA.

All for now,

C