The author advocated two words;
1) “sporangium proper” for only the sac full of sporangiospora and 2) “sporangial head” for a new entity, lumping sporangium proper apophysis and columella that is a wole thing produced at the top of sporangiophore. In this report 1 the sporangial head was accurately measured and examined by slide culture, as well as slantand and dish culture. The slide cultre made the examination easy and accurate.
The materials used were authentic strains obtained from CBS, ATCC and IFO. The data were expressed as numbers or figures as far as possible and the numerical data were analyzed statisticaly by including nonparametric statistical methods. The breadth and height of Absidia were examined. Statistically 62 distributions (31 for breadth, and 31 for height) were tested for normality. Only nine distributions were normal and the other 53 were not normal. The nine normal distributions were treated by the usual parametric methods and the 53 nonnormal by nonparametric methods.
Three ranges were presented: the common range included 80% of samples, the larger 96% and the largest, Min. -Max. The first two ranges were calculated statistically, especially when the distribution was normal, by parametric methods.
Many authors have reported simply and uniformely that the form of the sporangium (acurately sporangial head) is pyriform. The natural pear has a depression at the tip and at the base. The author named this form “eupyriform”. However, an eupyriform head has never been found on sporangial head by the author, who has examined over 3000 Absidia. He classified spornagial heads in to four categories: 1. almost pyriform 40 (1.29%), 2. subpyriform 60o (10.49%), 3. pseudopyriform 1859 (59.97%), 4. never pyriform 597 (10.25%). The pseudopyriform category was subclassified into: z. having a cone-formed neck of apophysis and s. having a concave funnel-like or trumpet-like neck.