based medium, which can be achieved by different
methods according to the situation in the case. A small
piece of any visible growth can be picked off with a sterile
scalpel blade and used to inoculate directly a culture
plate. A sample of the contaminated food, drink, or water
can also be applied directly to the culture plate. Alternatively,
a sample may be removed as a tape-lift, using a
clear adhesive tape such as Sellotape, first applied to a
growing colony and then to an agar plate. Tape-lifts have
the added advantage that they can also be placed directly
on glass microscope slides, stained, and examined under
the microscope in the form they were growing on the
foodstuff [4,12]; these can be especially instructive
where mixtures are obtained in culture as they establish
unequivocally which fungus (or fungi) was growing and
sporing in situ.