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Species Information
Summary: Amphinema byssoides is recognized by 1) the yellow color of the resupinate growth on wood, 2) the characteristic crater-like holes in the surface, and 3) under a hand-lens the numerous projecting cystidia; other features include 4) a finely velvety, cobwebby surface, 5) a marginal zone with rhizomorphs, 6) spores that are elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, with thickened walls, 7) long cylindric cystidia with septa and clamp connections, and 8) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae with clamp connections.
Amphinema byssoides is found in BC, WA, OR, AB, MB, NS, NT, ON, PQ, YT, AK, AZ, CA, CO, IA, IL, LA, MA, MN, NM, NY, OH, TX, UT, and VT, (Ginns), and Europe and Asia, (Breitenbach).
Fruiting body: resupinate, loosely attached; light ochraceous yellow, when young lighter and more creamy in color; "very finely velvety due to projecting cystidia, here and there interrupted by crater-like depressions"; margin usually with hyphal strands and rhizomorphs, (Eriksson), forming incoherent +/- perforated patches, up to the size of the palm of a hand; irregularly loosely filamentous and open, "fibrous to thin and membranous"; ocher-yellow to sulphur yellow; arachnoid, furfuraceous; margin irregularly fringed with +/- distinct rhizomorphs, (Breitenbach), spore deposit white (Buczacki)
Microscopic: SPORES 4-4.5 x 2-2.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, with thickened walls; BASIDIA 4-spored, 20-25 x 4-5 microns, clavate, rarely somewhat constricted; HYPHAL CYSTIDIA numerous, projecting 50-70 microns, in total 75-125 x 4-6 microns, "with septa and clamps, finely encrusted with thin, flat, projecting crystals, and small angular grains"; HYPHAE monomitic with hyphae 3-4 microns wide, intertangled, pale yellowish, with thin or somewhat thickened walls and clamp connections, (Eriksson), SPORES 4-5 x 2.5-3 microns, oval, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, with one droplet; BASIDIA 4-spored, (according to literature also with 2), up to 18-23 x 5-6 microns, clavate; CYSTIDIA up to 130 x 6 microns, "cylindric, blunt, thin- to thick-walled, with 1 to 4 septa, with clamps, lightly incrusted toward the tips"; HYPHAE monomitic with hyphae 2-3.5 microns wide, thin-walled to thick-walled, with clamp connections, (Breitenbach)
Habitat / Range
on dead coniferous wood and debris, (Eriksson), on rotting wood, litter and soil, damp soil and roots, associated with a variety of conifers, also with Acer (maple), Betula (birch), Populus (aspen and cottonwood), Quercus (oak), Selaginella apoda (creeping spikemoss), mycorrhizal at least with Picea glauca (white spruce), reported to be associated with a white rot, (Ginns), on the underside of dead wood, commonly in burned places, according to literature also on remains of other plants such as ferns and mosses, (Breitenbach), also on cones, leaf litter, and old polypore fruitbodies; all year, (Buczacki)
