Studies of Wood-Rotting Fungi: 1. Cultural Characteristics of some Common Species.

It is often essential to identify the organisms causing decay to timber. Since a sporophore is seldom present, diagnostic features other than those important ones usually provided by the sporophore must be sought. It has long been known that wood-rotting fungi grow readily on artificial media, but only comparatively recently have cultural characters been used as in aid in the identification of non-fruiting mycelium. A difficulty peculiar to the identification of these fungi in culture is that the morphological characters shown are applicable directly to the species only and cannot be used in the identification of other species in the same genus.