Abstract In the 3-to 4-day avian embryo, after the first wave of haemopoiesis which derives in the yolk sac from haemopoietic stem cells formed in situ, haemopoietic cells emerge in an intraembryonic site, the wall of the aorta. In this paper, we demonstrate that this site harbours M-CFC, G-CFC, GM-CFC and late and early BFU-E. In serum-free medium, the growth of M-CFC and GM-CFC was strictly dependent on CSF present in fibroblast-conditioned medium (FCM). The growth of G-CFC was improved when FCM was replaced by a minute quantity of chicken and fetal calf serum. Like erythroid progenitors from bone marrow, BFU-E detected here required anaemic chicken serum to differentiate into haemoglobinized cells. The frequency of the different types of haemopoietic progenitors in the aortic population was very high: 80 M-CFC, 25 G-CFC, 4 GM-CFC and 70 BFU-E for 12 500 aorta cells, i.e. two to eight times more frequent than in the bone marrow population, depending on the type of progenitors. Abbreviations: ACS, anaemic chicken serum; ANAE, alpha-naphthyl acetate esterase; BFU-E, burst-forming unit, erythroid; CAE, naphthol AS-D chloro-acetate esterase; CFU-E, colony-forming unit, erythroid; CFU-GEMM, colony-forming unit, granulocytic, erythroid, monocytic, megakaryocytic; CSF, colony-stimulating factor; FCM, fibroblast-conditioned medium; G-CFC, granulocytic, colony-forming cell; GM-CFC, granulocytic monocytic, colony-forming cell; M-CFC, monocytic, colony-forming cell.