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The "clubs," found at the perifery of the "sulfur granules" in Actinomyces infection, are composed chiefly of a highly polymerlzed basic protein rich in guanidyl, indole, and phenolic groups; sulfhydryl groups are absent. The clubs appear to be made of a material actively secreted by the filaments. It is hypothesized that some product or products of animal protein decomposition which are metabolized by the actinomycete trigger and maintain club formation in vlvo, and that the club prevents phagocytosis or enzymatic digestion of the filaments on the one hand but proscribes further growth of the filaments on the other. New growth of the parasite takes place by extension of non-clubbed filaments at the perifery of the granule or by deposition of coccoid elements phagocytized by leucocytes.The literature is lacking in information on the nature of the hyaline "clubs" often found at the perifery of the "sulfur granule," and on the mode of club formation in Actinomyces infection. In these experiments the nature of the clubs is examined and the results compared with (I) the observations of others on stained material, and (2) past experimental observations and opinion on club formation. MATERIALS AND METHODSFormalin fixed pieces of human lung from a patient whose lungs had previously yielded cultures of A. boris were washed overnight in running tap water then embedded either in paraffin or carbowax. With the exception of the test for arginine, the stain methods used are described by Pearse (1961). These included tests for carbohydrates (periodic acid-Schiff, Alcian blue)