Nocardia is stained by:

Ans. is 'a' i.e., Acid fast stainRef:(Ananthanarayan, 8th/e, p. 393; 9th/e, p. 390-91)The first step in diagnosis is examination of sputum or pus for crooked, branching, beaded, gram-positive filaments 1 um wide and up to 50 um long. Most nocardiae are acid-fast in direct smears if a weak acid is used for decolorization (e.g., in the modified Kinyoun, Ziehl-Neelsen, and Fite-Faraco methods). The organisms often take up silver stains.