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Species Information
Summary: Features include a small fruitbody that is shallow cup-shaped to funnel-shaped or ear-shaped, colored olive-yellow to olive green, with the underside and stem dark olive-green to brownish olive, and microscopic characters. Ramamurthi(1) comment in 1957 that about half of the collections they examined in North America that were determined as Chlorociboria versiformis proved to be Chlorociboria rugipes (Peck) C.S. Ramamurthi & Korf, which Dixon(1) later considered a synonym of Chlorencoelia torta. The description of Chlorencoelia versiformis here is derived from Dixon(1).
Collections were examined from BC, ON, PQ, MI, MN, NC, NH, NY, OH, PA, WV, Argentina, Denmark, Russia, Sweden, Yugoslavia, and Japan, (Dixon).
Upper surface: fruitbody up to 0.9(1.7)cm in diameter, mostly 0.7-0.9cm in diameter, shallow cup-shaped to funnel-shaped, "becoming convex-expanded to repand in mature specimens, occasionally revolute", may be spatulate [spatula-shaped] or otideoid [ear-shaped, like Otidea]; olive-yellow to olive-green when fresh becoming chestnut brown to black upon drying
Underside: dark olive-green to brownish olive when fresh, drying dark brown or greenish black, with a pruinose greenish yellow cast when dry; furrowed to rugose [wrinkled]
Stem: up to 0.7cm x 0.05-0.1cm, colored as the exterior; bald, rugose [wrinkled] especially on drying
Microscopic: spores (10)11-15(16) x 2.5-3.5 microns, cylindric-oblong to allantoid, smooth, colorless, unicellular to 1-septate, having 0 to 2, 3, 4 droplets, occasionally also with several smaller droplets, irregularly biseriate in the ascus; asci 8-spored, (79)95-130(150) x (4)5-8 microns, cylindric-clavate with long tapering stems, strongly iodine positive, apex rounded to subconic [somewhat conic], wall at apex 1.5-3 microns thick, 0.5-1.0 microns thick along the sides, arising from repeated croziers; paraphyses 2-3 microns wide, scarcely longer than the asci, filiform [thread-like], occasionally subclavate at the tip, "unbranched or branching near the base with the point of branching being so low in some specimens as to appear unbranched", colorless or filled with numerous guttules [droplets] and/or green granules; hymenium (80)95-130(145) microns thick, colorless with occasional brown parts "due to abundance of pigmented paraphyses"; subhymenium 20-35 microns thick, of colorless and/or light brown - walled textura intricata, with colorless or brown contents, hyphae 2.4-4.0 microns wide; medullary excipulum of colorless to light brown, loose to tightly compacted textura intricata, parts often with collapsed hyphae, hyphae 3-5 microns wide, "smooth or more often roughened with dark brown granulations, sympodially branched"; ectal excipulum 25-100 microns thick, of colorless to dark-walled textura intricata to textura angularis that gives rise to filamentous to slightly clavate tomentum hyphae oriented nearly perpendicularly to the flanks of the fruitbody, "hyphae at the base of the tomentum hyphae often highly septate, forming cuboid cells of various sizes", tomentum hyphae 5-7 microns wide, with colorless walls 0.25(1.5) microns wide, "in occasional specimens tomentum hyphae containing green pigment and/or granules"
Habitat / Range
superficial, single to gregarious, occasionally in cespitose clusters from a common stem, on decayed wood of conifers and hardwood trees, collected on Betula (birch), Nothofagus (southern beech), Quercus (oak), Tsuga (hemlock), and unidentified wood; fruiting in summer and fall, most frequently in fall
Similar Species
Chlorencoelia torta (Schwein.) J.R. Dixon differs in having somewhat smaller fruitbodies (usually less than 0.7cm in diameter), irregularly elliptic spores (5.6)9-11(12) x 2-4 microns, medullary excipulum of dark-walled hyphae, and ectal excipulum of stemmed, nearly spherical to definitely clavate tomentum hyphae, whereas C. versiformis fruitbodies are 0.7-0.9(1.7)cm in diameter, spores are cylindric to allantoid, (10)11-15(16) x 2.5-3.5, medullary excipulum is of colorless to light brown - walled hyphae, and ectal excipulum produces filamentous to slightly clavate tomentum hyphae. Collections of C. torta were examined from ON, PQ, AL, CT, GA, IN, IA, KY, MA, ME, MI, NC, NJ, NY, OH, PA, VA, WI, Puerto Rico, Russia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. (Dixon).
