Xiao Hui Lau

with a camera and a microscope

A Rare Opportunity

This is a new fungi that I had never been able to see before, and it was exciting! It’s a dermatiaceous fungi, which just means it’s a black (darkly coloured) mould, and is a rare cause of infection of people but may cause skin and eye infections due to skin/eye trauma, invasive diseases, and allergic fungal sinusitis. (Sounds like a lot of stuff for being a rare cause of human infection, huh?) It’s commonly found in soil and on plants- especially on grasses, and likes warm and humid climates.

Exserohilum-copyright-Xiao-Hui-Lau-2015

One of the distinctive characteristics of the conidia of this fungus, from the genus Exserohilum, is the little knob at the end, which is called the “hilum”.  Upon googling the etymology of “hilum”, apparently in Latin, it means “little thing”, which I think is just adorable.

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