Summary:
Features include 1) tiny, circular or wavy or distorted, yellowish brown then blackish fruitbodies, the spore-bearing surface concave then convex, colored dark olivaceous brown to black, the margin at first thick, raised, and yellowish brown, 2) consistency leathery to horny (fleshy-leathery when moist), 3) erumpent growth on birch, and 4) microscopic characters.
Collections were examined from NS, ON, PQ, NH, NY, and PA, (Groves). A collection from BC is at the Pacific Forestry Centre determined by A. Funk.
Upper surface:
apothecia [sexual fruitbodies] 0.1-0.3cm across, 0.1-0.2cm high, circular, sinuate [wavy], or distorted by crowding and sometimes more or less laterally fused, "ochraceous tawny" or "tawny" (colors from Ridgway(1)) to almost black, usually slightly furfuraceous to bald; spore-bearing surface "at first concave, becoming strongly convex", dark olivaceous brown to black, greenish when moist, sometimes cracked; margin at first thick, raised, yellowish brown, later disappearing; conidial stromata 0.1-0.4cm across and 0.05-0.1cm high, "transversely elongated or almost circular", ''slightly furfuraceous, "ochraceous tawny" to blackish, waxy-fleshy in consistency, usually containing several more or less lobed, flask-shaped cavities which tear open irregularly and sometimes very widely''
Flesh:
consistency hard, leathery to horny, more fleshy-leathery when moist
Underside:
"ochraceous tawny" or "tawny" (colors from Ridgway(1)) to almost black, usually slightly furfuraceous to bald
Stem:
sessile [without a stem] to substipitate [with a rudimentary stem]
Microscopic:
spores (13)15-20(22) x 4-7 microns, narrowly elliptic to subfusiform, straight or slightly curved, colorless becoming yellowish, 1-4-celled, irregularly biseriate to uniseriate in ascus; asci 8-spored, (85)100-120(150) x 12-15 microns, "cylindric-clavate, tapering toward the base"; paraphyses 1.5-2.0 microns wide, filiform, colorless, "septate, simple or branched", "the tips slightly swollen, embedded in a yellowish matrix and forming a dark epithecium"; conidia 50-75 x 2.5-3.5 microns, subfiliform, "sickle-shaped or sigmoid to almost straight", ends pointed, colorless or pale yellowish, 1-4-celled; conidiophores 15-30 x 1.5-2.0 microns, cylindric, colorless, septate, simple or branched; microconidia 7-12 x 1.0-1.5 microns, "bacilliform, straight or slightly curved", colorless, 1-celled
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