Further study of the lipids from Pithomyces chartarum (Sporidesmium bakeri) and related fungi.

A study of the lipids of Pithomyce8 chartarum (Berk. & Curt.) M. B. Ellis (which has replaced the name Sporide8mium bakeri Syd. used previously) has shown that their fatty acid composition differs from that of other fungi hitherto examined in containing large quantities of both linoleic acid and palmitic acid (Hartman, Hawke, Morice & Shorland, 1960). The main object of the present work has been to determine whether the fatty acid composition of the lipids of P. chartarum is peculiar to that species or common to other members of the same or related families. For this purpose two further samples of P. chartarum as well as a sample of another dark-coloured fungus, Stemphylium dendritiwum from the same family, Dematiaceae, and a sample of a hyaline or bright-coloured fungus, Jylindrocarpon radicicola from the related Tuberculariaceae family, have been investigated. The spores from P. chartarum and a sample of the medium on which all the fungi were grown have also been examined. As Weenink (1961) and Shorland (1961) have shown that some plant materials with relatively small amounts of lipids contain in the acetonesoluble portion only small amounts of triglycerides, the nature of the non-phospholipid fractions of fungal lipids has been examined by isolation and determination of glycerol, as well as by the estimation of the sterol content.