SU1MMARY:The cultural characters of a strain of Lactobacillus arabinosus and L. helveticus used in the microbiological assay of riboflavin and nicotinic acid proved to be typical, excepting that neither strain fermented xylose and the strain of L. arabinosus fermented rhamnose but not raffinose. Neither produced catalase, so that a strongly positive catalase test in these cultures indicates probable contamination by common air-borne micro-organisms.