Seventy-nine strains representative of the dominant flora of raw milk held for 5 days at 4 - 5 degrees C were submitted to an Adansonian classification involving 77 criteria, mainly biochemical ones. Seventy-eight strains had most of the characters in common with the fluorescent group of Pseudomonas described by Stanier and coworkers. About half of these bacteria could be identified as P. fluorescens, despite the fact that some strains showed a few discrepancies from the ideal phenotype. The other half were intermediate between P. fluorescens and P. putida. These results and those of other workers, associated to ecological considerations, lead the author to contest the current models used for the identification of the fluorescent Pseudomonas.