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Species Information
Summary: Features include cup-shaped to disc-shaped, orange, stemless fruitbody, paler exterior that has bunches of brown downy hairs, growth on burned wood and burned ground, and microscopic characters.
Anthracobia melaloma is found in BC, WA, OR, ID, CA, and CO, (Larsen).
Upper surface: 0.2-0.5cm, cup-shaped, disc concave then flattened; ochraceous orange, (Dennis), 0.1-0.3cm, hemispheric when young, then disc-shaped to plate-shaped; orange to pale orange; margin appearing somewhat furfuraceous, (Breitenbach), 0.2-1.2cm, yellowish ochraceous, (Hansen)
Underside: slightly paler than upper surface, "dotted brown with the bunches of downy hairs, particularly towards the margin and hence often appearing striate when dried", (Dennis), lighter than upper surface and darkly punctate with tufts of appressed hairs, (Breitenbach), pale brownish, with brownish hairs, (Hansen)
Stem: none (Dennis, Breitenbach)
Microscopic: spores 14-22 x 7-11 microns, oblong-elliptic, smooth, with two oil drops; asci up to 200 x 15 microns; paraphyses slender, clavate at tips and up to 6 microns wide; hairs "up to 110 x 10 microns, cylindrical, obtuse, septate, with thin, smooth, light brown walls", (Dennis), spores 16-17.5 x 8-9 microns, narrowly elliptic, smooth, with 2 droplets; asci 8-spored, 160-190 x 11-12 microns, inamyloid; paraphyses slender, cylindric, septate, thickened at tips to 6 microns wide; hairs up to 80 x 13 microns, smooth, multiseptate, thin-walled, slightly brownish, (Breitenbach)
Habitat / Range
on burnt wood and sites of bonfires, July to January (Dennis for UK), gregarious on burned ground and charred wood (Breitenbach for Switzerland), clustered or crowded, often in broad masses, (Lincoff)
Similar Species
Anthracobia macrocystis is a more bright reddish shade of orange, paraphyses stain green in Melzer''s reagent, and hairs are more rudimentary and short with only one septum. Pyronema omphalodes does not have tufts of hair on exterior, is more or less confluent rather than just crowded, is more pink in color, and has a conspicuous white cobwebby subiculum.
