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Species Information
Summary: {See also Dacrymyces Table.} Fruitbodies are orange to light yellow, and cushion-shaped to cup-shaped or slightly convoluted. Characteristic features are the presence of arthrospores in chains (spores derived from the disarticulation of a vegetative branch), thickened spore walls, size and 3-septa of basidiospores, and clampless hyphae, (Breitenbach 1986). In collections where arthrospores are absent D. stillatus can be distinguished by the 3-septate spores with thickened walls and septa, absence of conspicuous dikaryophyses, and lack of clamp connections, (McNabb 1973). "Often two forms appear together in same habitat, namely the lighter and yellower basidiospore-producing form and the darker, orange one which produces arthrospores (oidia)", (Breitenbach). Thick walls and septa of spores seem to be an inconstant feature since it may vary considerably in spores from different fruitbodies in the same collection, it also seems that septation occurs after discharge and prior to germination while the spores are trapped on the surface of the fruitbody, as 3-septation was not in a yellow spore deposit, (Reid). There are many collections from BC at the University of British Columbia.
Distribution includes WA, OR, ID, NF, NS, NT, ON, AK, AL, AZ, CA, CO, GA, IA, LA, MO, NC, NJ, NY, OH, SC, TX, VT, and WI, (Ginns), Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, (McNabb who says it is generally common), Panama, Bolivia, and also reported from Japan and South Georgia of Antarctica, (Reid), and USSR throughout (Raitviir). The records of Martin and Lowy are dubious since they report clamp connections, (Reid).
Fruiting body: 0.1-1.5cm across, cushion-like, knob-shaped, lens-shaped, cup-shaped, or plate-shaped, with a stem-like attachment in center, "flesh gelatinous-elastic and more or less translucent, deliquescing into a slimy mass when old"; "orange to light yellow, more rarely almost white, dark orange when dry": smooth to undulating-wrinkled, sometimes also slightly cerebriform [brain-shaped], (Breitenbach), 0.1-0.4cm in diameter, occasionally coalescing to form masses up to 2cm in extent, pustulate, convolute or brain-like, sometimes flattened discoid and smooth or slightly convoluted; gelatinous; attached to substrate by a point; yellow to orange-yellow when fresh, drying yellow-brown to red-brown; arthrospore-bearing fructifications hemispheric, irregular, or tuberculate, soft-gelatinous to waxy-gelatinous, bright orange or reddish orange when fresh, opaque, drying dark red-orange, (McNabb), 0.1-0.4cm, up to 0.35cm tall, flat-turbinate; watery orange to amber, drying reddish brown and more or less pezizoid, (Martin), "sexual form is usually watery gelatinous to firm, yellow, orange, or reddish orange, sometimes with a short stipe and rather small and cushion-shaped, but sometimes forming larger confluent masses" - it produces sexual spores; asexual form rather soft, dark orange or reddish orange, and produces asexual spores, (Trudell), spore deposit white (Buczacki)
Microscopic: spores 14-17 x 5-6 microns, elliptic-cylindric, slightly curved, smooth, inamyloid, thick-walled, colorless, with 3 septa when mature, also arthrospores (oidia) 9-12(16) x 3-4 microns, in chains, colorless; basidia up to 50 microns, fork-shaped; cystidia not seen; hyphae 2-3 microns wide, without clamp connections, (Breitenbach), spores (9)10.5-16(17.5) x 3.5-6 microns, "curved cylindrical, occasionally ovate to subpyriform, becoming thick-walled with thick septa, tinted, apiculate", becoming 3-(4)-septate at maturity, germination by colorless, spherical to nearly spherical conidia and/or by germ tubes; probasidia 25-53 x 3-4.5 microns, cylindric-subclavate, with basal septa, becoming bifurcate; hymenium consisting of basidia and occasionally simple, cylindric dikaryophyses; internal hyphae thin-walled, smooth or roughened, septate, clamp connections absent; clamp connections not seen in any specimens by McNabb and Kennedy, but presence recorded by Brasfield, Martin and Olive; outer layers of arthrospore stage composed of chains of arthrospores, (1)-2-celled, 8-16 x 2.5-5.5 microns, arthrospores often present in separate fruitings or occasionally mixed with basidia, (McNabb), spores 15-25 x 6-9 microns, plump-allantoid, becoming 3-7(9)-septate, and producing subspherical to ovoid conidia up to 4 x 2.5 microns, (Martin)
Habitat / Range
on conifer wood, less often hardwood, found on logs, old railroad ties, causes a brown rot, (Ginns), single, gregarious, or coalescing together to form large groups, on dead hardwood or conifer wood, with or without bark, throughout year but conspicuous only in wet periods, (Breitenbach), all year; including structural timber, (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Dacrymyces tortus has clamped paraphyses and narrower spores, (Brasfield(2)). Dacrymyces capitatus a has short substantial stem and somewhat smaller and thin-walled spores, (Breitenbach). Dacrymyces minor is usually on hardwoods, and has spores up to 4-cellular with thin septa, (Raitviir). See also SIMILAR section of Dacrymyces chrysospermus.
