Summary: Features include 1) growth on wood, 2) fruitbodies that are pellicular, cream color at first, developing interrupted randomly arranged folds and wrinkles, the surface somewhat waxy when old, the margin mycelioid to membranous, the subiculum soft, loose, and white, and rhizomorphs often present, 3) spores that are cylindric, smooth, inamyloid, and colorless, with a prominent apiculus, and 4) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae with clamp connections.
Microscopic: SPORES 4.5-7(8.5) x 1.5-2(2.5) microns, subfusiform to cylindric, in side view "adaxially concave or basally bent", "with prominent, broad, blunt apiculus", spore iodine negative, colorless in KOH, often adhering in groups of 2-4; BASIDIA 20-33 x 4-5.5 microns, narrowly clavate; CYSTIDIA absent; HYPHAE monomitic: context hyphae 2-7.5(9) microns wide, loosely woven, colorless, "exterior sparsely crystalline-incrusted, with prominent clamps", thin-walled or occasionally rather thick-walled, often collapsed when dried; "subhymenial detail often obscure because of dense, granular deposits, generally showing thickening, hyphae closely packed", (Ginns(12)), SPORES 6-8 x 1.8-2 microns, cylindric, with oblique apiculus, smooth, thin-walled; BASIDIA 4-spored, 16-22 x 4-5 microns, clavate, with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA none; HYPHAE monomitic: SUBICULAR HYPHAE 4-7 microns wide, thin-walled, or somewhat thick-walled, loosely interwoven, SUBHYMENIAL HYPHAE 2-3 microns wide, richly branched and densely interwoven, clamp connections on all septa, hyphal branches originating at clamp cells or between septa, (Eriksson)
Notes: Ceraceomyces borealis has been reported from BC, WA, ID, AB, ON, PQ, AL, CO, ME, MI, MN, NC, NY, and TN, (Ginns(5)), and Czechoslovakia, Finland, Sweden, USSR (European part), Russia (Siberia), and Morocco, (Ginns(12)).
Habitat and Range
Habitat
saprophytic on hardwoods and conifers, especially Betula [birch], Populus, Quercus [oak], Abies [fir], Picea [spruce], and Pinus [pine]; associated with a brown rot, mainly in August and September, but recorded as early as July and as late as December, (Ginns(12)), associated with a brown rot or a white rot, (Ginns(5)), summer, fall, (Buczacki)