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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) resupinate growth on hardwood, 2) fruitbodies that are tightly attached, waxy, grayish, sometimes with a violet or pink tint, the margin well demarcated, and pubescent when actively growing, 3) spores that are oblong, smooth and inamyloid, 4) obscure dendrohyphidia, 5) cylindric cystidia, and 6) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae with clamp connections.
Crustomyces expallens has been found in BC, AB, and ON, (Ginns). It has also been found in Denmark, France, and Russia, (Eriksson).
Fruiting body: resupinate, closely adnate [tightly attached], effused [spread out] and often large, 0.01-0.04cm thick, when living ceraceous [waxy], when dried crustaceous, hard, smooth; "when wet watery subhyaline, greyish, sometimes with a violaceous or rosaceous tint", when dried whitish-grayish-yellowish or in older parts more or less ochraceous; "margin determinate, in young, vividly growing specimens pubescent", (Eriksson), spore deposit white (Buczacki)
Microscopic: SPORES 6-8 x 2.5-3 microns, narrowly elliptic-oblong, "more or less obliquely acute towards the apiculus", smooth, inamyloid, acyanophilic, thin-walled; BASIDIA 4-spored, 30-50 x 5-7 microns (when mature), narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; DENDROHYPHIDIA "present but often few and difficult to find, not projecting", at the base 2-3 microns wide, lateral branches varying in shape, 1-2 microns wide, as a rule 2-5 microns long; CYSTIDIA "varying in number, sometimes numerous and as a rule easily found, enclosed or somewhat projecting", 50-100 x 5-9 microns, cylindric but tapering toward the base, "apically obtuse, rounded, thin-walled, with continuous, non-granular contents, not reacting to sulfoaldehyde"; HYPHAE monomitic, "hyphae thin or in the basal part with slightly thickened walls", 2-3.5 microns wide, "richly branched and forming a tough context", clamp connections present, "in older parts of fruitbody often hyphal encrustations together with lumps of larger crystals", subhymenium thickening, subiculum usually well developed, (Eriksson), SPORES 5-8 x 2.5-3 microns, oblong, obliquely apiculate and a little flattened laterally; BASIDIA 2-4-spored, 12-45 x 3-7 microns, (Bourdot)
Habitat / Range
on Populus balsamifera (Balsam Poplar), Populus trichocarpa (Black Cottonwood), (Ginns), on bark or decayed wood of deciduous trees (stumps, fallen trunks, and branches) or on living trees in humid localities, in N. Europe only on Salix, but reported from many other trees (Alnus, Populus, Corylus, Prunus, Fraxinus), (Eriksson), perhaps all year (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Crustomyces pini-canadensis has spores measuring 3-5(7) x 2-3(4) microns and a dimitic hyphal system, (Ginns(23)).
