Mucor racemosus

Species colonising a wide variety of foodstuffs, such as fruits, dairy products, and all types of processed food; the specimen studied here occurred on a spoiled tin of pâté, appearing as a cottony mass of abundant interwoven fine hyphae, hyaline and bearing numerous terminal minute black dots corresponding to sporangia.

Mycelial hyphae coarse, hyaline, 5–15 µm wide, non-septate (coenocytic).

Sporangia globose, variable in size (30–70 µm in diameter), with a thin wall that ruptures readily to release the spores, and a conspicuous basal collar where it joins the sporangiophore.

Spores (sporangiospores) oval to elliptical, smooth- and thin-walled, hyaline or with faint pale greyish intracellular pigment, measuring 6–9 µm long by 5–8 µm wide.

Chlamydospores present, globose, yellowish, up to 20 µm in diameter.