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Species Information
Summary: Also listed in Jelly category. Ditiola radicata is characterized by rooting fruiting bodies with a different microscopic structure in the cap and the stout stem, and tardily 1(2)-septate spores. Young fruiting bodies are often covered by a white "veil" before the spore-bearing surface develop. This description is for var. radicata. Var. gyrocephala is distinguished by more prominent stem, normally darker color, and 3-septate spores. (McNabb 1966).
Var. radicata is found in BC, AB, NS, ON, AZ, CA, GA, IA, MA, MD, NC, NH, NY, OH, and VT, (Ginns), and the British Isles, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, (McNabb). Var. gyrocephala is found in NS, ON, LA, MA, ME, MN, MS, NJ, NY, and SC, (Ginns). D. radicata is also found in Estonia and Russia, (Raitviir), and the United Kingdom (Reid, who notes that Lowy collections are suspect because they are said to have clamp connections).
Upper surface: up to 0.7cm high, at first cylindric, turbinate [top-shaped], or piston-shaped, becoming stoutly stemmed and capped, occasionally with two or more caps on common stem, cap 0.2-0.5cm in diameter, shallow cup-shaped or inflated and gyrose; orange when fresh, drying dark orange brown, (McNabb), up to 0.3(0.4-0.5)cm, at first small hemispheric pustules, but soon relatively thick and disc-shaped with shallow central depression, or barrel-shaped, cup-shaped, or cylindric, with an apical depression, but finally turbinate [top-shaped] with a flattened, smooth or wrinkled disc up to 0.25cm across; "orange when fresh becoming orange-brown when dry, but when young appearing almost hoary due to a covering of a minute scurfy-pruinose tomentum", (Reid)
Flesh: consistency of fruiting body tough-gelatinous, (McNabb)
Stem: cylindric, even, stout, 0.2-0.4cm x 0.1-0.2cm, prolonged basally into a simple or forked root; stem dingy white or cream, drying pallid tan, somewhat tomentose, (McNabb), 0.25-0.4cm x 0.1-0.2cm, covered with a whitish cream felt-like tomentum, expanding in upper part into disc and strongly rooting in lower part, in some case fruitbodies may branch from a common base, (Reid)
Microscopic: spores (8.5)10-13(14.5) x 3.5-4.5(5) microns, cylindric to slightly curved-cylindric, thin-walled with thin septa, tinted, apiculate, tardily 1(2)-septate at maturity, germination by germ tubes, occasionally by conidia; probasidia 33-50 x 3.5-5 microns, cylindric-subclavate, with basal septa, becoming bifurcate; hymenium "amphigenous, composed of basidia and occasionally simple, cylindric dikaryophyses"; structure of cap and stem are different: cap "composed of thin-walled, septate, branched hyphae of smaller diameter" [than those in stem] "loosely arranged", stem "composed of thick-walled, sparingly septate and typically unbranched hyphae lying more or less parallel and projecting into the pileus"; clamp connections absent from all hyphae; hairs on stem thick-walled, roughened, septate, with terminal cells often slightly inflated, (McNabb), spores 8.0-9.75 x 3.75-4.0 microns, elliptic, none seen with septa, (Reid)
Spore Deposit: yellow (Buczacki)
Habitat / Range
conifer wood and hardwood, fallen limbs with bark, usually barkless wood, associated with a brown rot, Abies balsamea, Betula spp., Pinus sp., Pinus contorta, Quercus sp. Quercus coccinea, cedar, (Ginns), gregarious on conifer wood, (McNabb), all year (Buczacki)
Similar Species
D. radicata may be confused with stemmed species of Dacrymyces, but it is readily distinguished microscopically by the difference in the structure of the cap and stem, (McNabb). Dacrymyces capitatus is very similar when immature, because the heterogeneous internal structure of Ditiola radicata does not become evident until late in development: the only sure way of distinguishing these two is to ensure that one has mature fruiting bodies while checking the internal structure, and the septation of the spores: those of Ditiola radicata are tardily 1-(2-)septate, and those of Dacrymyces capitatus are 3-septate with the septa often thickened, (Reid).
