Lagenidium humanum, a Saprophyte Isolated on Dead Human Skin

SUMMARYLagenidium humanum was isolated on bits of dead human skin which had been floated on a watered soil sample collected in a cemetery at Briarcliff, N. Y. It was subsequently isolated from this substratum and grown in pure culture on agar and in nutrient liquid media. This species is characterized by a coarse, filamentous, mycelioid, branched and septate thallus, reniform zoospores, and sexually-formed oospores. The antheridia may be slightly larger than the oögonia or vice versa, or the two gametangia may be similar in size and shape. Accordingly, sexual reproduction in L. humanum may be isogamous or heterogamous.