Two commercial agar media for the cultivation of anaerobes were compared with four other media for their ability to support the growth of a wide range of anaerobes from clinical specimens of subgingival plaque. Fastidious anaerobe agar (FAA, Lab M) and anaerobe agar (GAA, Gibco) allowed better growth of the pure cultures than the other media. FAA recovered the highest numbers of bacteria from subgingival plaque specimens which were composed predominantly of anaerobes. GAA performed poorly with these samples. It is concluded that FAA seemed to be superior to the other media tested for the cultivation and recovery of anaerobes.