Penicillium notatum

Latin Name: Penicillium notatum

Common name: Penicillium (doesn't have a very specific common name)

Optimum Temperature: 25 °C

Medium: PDA 
What is it?? FUNGUS

Appearance under the loupe: snow flakes!

Source: Naiane Rios (click on the picture and zoom in!)


It goes without saying that Penicillium is mostly known as the source for penicillin and the great medical revolution it provoked.
But the great thing about Penicillium notatum is that it's one of the most easy identifiable fungus there is.
If you see something that has a velvet texture and has a gray-green kind of color, it's very likely you're looking to a pretty Penicillium. You almost wish you could saw from it a long fancy Grammy-Awards-kinda coat. 

Source: http://www.polyvore.com

 How to prepare the medium PDA?

Home Made PDA

 

Preparation

1) To prepare potato infusion, boil 200 g sliced, unpeeled potatoes in 1 liter distilled water for 30 min.  

2) Filter through cheesecloth, saving effluent, which is potato infusion (or use commercial dehydrated form).  

3) Mix with Dextrose, Agar and Water and boil to dissolve. 

4) Autoclave 15 min at 121°C. 5) Final pH, 5.6 ± 0.2.

Commercial PDA

 

Preparation

1) Add 39 g of the powder to 1 Liter of distilled water. 

2) Boil while mixing to dissolve. 

3) Autoclave 15 min at 121°C. 

 Macroscopy

This is how Penicillium notatum looks likes under the loupe.
How awesome is that? <3

 Source: Naiane Rios

This is the loupe used, but to have such a cool picture the trick is to have a microscope digital camera attached. The one there is a AmScope MU1000.

 Source: Naiane Rios

Microscopy 

Under the microscope things a bit different.

Expectations: 

Source: Guclu et al., 2010 

Reality: 

Source: http://oldblockwriter.blogspot.fr/

More technical details about the purchase: http://m.carolina.com/fungi/penicillium-notatum-living-plate/156157.pr?question=Penicillium+notatum http://himedialabs.com/TD/M773.pdf