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Species Information
Summary: Features include tiny, circular or wavy, yellowish to brownish then black fruitbodies that are furfuraceous at first, the spore-bearing surface concave to slightly convex and often umbilicate, colored light brown to olivaceous brown or black, the margin at first raised, yellowish, and furfuraceous, the consistency leathery to horny (fleshy-leathery when moist), erumpent growth on fir and hemlock, and microscopic characters. The description is derived from Groves(2).
Collections were examined from NS, ON, PQ, NH, ME, PA, and VA, (Groves). There are numerous collections from BC at the Pacific Forestry Centre determined by A. Funk.
Upper surface: apothecia [sexual fruitbodies] 0.1-0.25cm across, 0.04-0.08cm high, circular or undulate, "at first yellowish to brownish, furfuraceous", finally black and bald; spore-bearing surface at first concave then flat or slightly convex, often umbilicate, light brown to olivaceous brown or black (more greenish when moist), "roughened and sometimes cracked"; margin "at first raised, yellowish, furfuraceous", later black and bald, finally disappearing; conidial fruitbodies 0.05-0.1cm across, 0.02-0.05cm high, "rounded to cylindric or subconic", "yellowish or olivaceous to black", furfuraceous to bald, "tearing open irregularly and widely at the top, brittle, waxy in consistency, more fleshy when moist, usually containing a single, simple or more or less lobed cavity, occasionally with more than one"
Flesh: consistency "hard, leathery to horny", "becoming more fleshy-leathery when moist"
Underside: "at first yellowish to brownish, furfuraceous", finally black and bald
Stem: sessile [without a stem], slightly narrowed in lower part
Microscopic: spores (18)20-30(35) x (5)6-8(10) microns, elliptic-fusiform, straight or slightly curved, colorless or slightly yellowish, 1-4-celled, irregularly biseriate or almost uniseriate; asci 8-spored, (90)100-130(150) x (12)14-16 microns, cylindric-clavate, tapering to a more or less elongated stem; paraphyses 1.5-2.0 microns in diameter, filiform [thread-like], colorless, "septate, usually much branched", "the tips glued together forming a yellowish epithecium, and only very slightly or not at all swollen"; conidia (50)60-75(90) x 4-5 microns, elongate-filiform, usually curved, sickle-shaped to sigmoid, (sometimes almost straight), pointed at ends, colorless to pale greenish yellow, 1-4-celled; conidiophores 15-25 x 2.0-2.5 microns, colorless, "septate, sometimes branched, tapering to a slender tip"; microconidia 11-22 x 1.0-1.5 microns, filiform, straight or curved, colorless, 1-celled
Habitat / Range
apothecia "erumpent, gregarious, mostly separate, sometimes cespitose with 2-4 in a cluster", on Abies balsamea (Balsam Fir) and Tsuga canadensis (Eastern Hemlock); conidial fruitbodies "erumpent to subimmersed, gregarious to scattered", (Groves), BC specimens mostly on Abies lasiocarpa (Subalpine Fir) and Tsuga heterophylla (Western Hemlock), also on Abies amabilis (Pacific Silver Fir), Pinus monticola (Western White Pine), and Thuja plicata (Western Red-cedar)
Similar Species
Dermea pseudotsugae also has relatively large (for Dermea) yellow to black apothecia and conidia with sharply pointed ends, exceeding 35 microns long, and both grow on conifers, but the fruiting structures of Dermea balsamea are larger: apothecia reach 0.25cm whereas those of D. pseudotsugae rarely exceed 0.15cm, the maximum length of the spores in D. balsamea is 7 microns more than in D. pseudotsugae, and the maximum length of the macroconidia in D. balsamea is twice the length in D. pseudotsugae, (Funk(2)). Dermea cerasi and Dermea molliuscula have different habit, habitat, and microscopic characters (Dermea balsamea occurring on Abies and Tsuga and apothecia usually occurring singly or in clusters of 2 or 3, having asci somewhat broader and ascospores slightly larger than the other two, conidia mostly longer than those of D. cerasi and broader than those of D. molliuscula, and conidial fruitbodies usually with only a single cavity and smaller and more pycnidium-like than those of either of the other two species), (Groves). Dermea grovesii has reddish brown apothecia, (Funk(2)).
