Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Species Information
Summary: Exidia candida produces fruitbodies with brain-like lobes, that are translucent whitish or grayish, typically with orange or brown areas.
It is found in BC, WA, ID, NWT, NY, and PA, (Ginns). Collections were examined from BC, WA, ID, NS, and ON, and the distribution is probably throughout the northern United States and Canada, (Klett).
Fruiting body: arising as colorless pustules, "expanding and becoming appressed-discoid or almost immediately anastomosing to form expanded masses" up to 10cm or more, most often broadly attached; grayish hyaline to whitish to cream to grayish orange to cinnamon to vinaceous russet, very often with more than one of these colors on one fruitbody; outer surface undulate to alveolate to cerebriform [brain-like], occasionally lobed, with or without light colored or whitish papillae up to 0.5 microns long; undersurface appressed or free, occasionally with strands of hyphae contacting the substrate; margin "free, undulate to incised, often appearing ciliate by the long papillae"; sterile fruitbodies frequent, (Klett), "Applanate, white with grayish, cerebriform lobes", (Lloyd)
Microscopic: spores 11-13.5-16 x 4-5(5.5) microns, cylindric-curved, colorless, white in mass, capable of germinating by repetition; basidia "arising as clavate structures subtended by clamp connections, proliferating through the clamp connections to form loose or tight cymose clusters", probasidia becoming ellipsoid to obovate to obpyriform, often with a stalk, then 10-15-20 x 6.5-8.5-11 microns, becoming 2-celled to 4-celled by longitudinal to oblique septa, hypobasidia 11-15-19 x 8.5-11 microns, or occasionally somewhat longer, epibasidia 2-2.5 microns wide at bases, 3.5 microns wide at tips; dikaryophyses forming a layer up to 50 microns thick above the level of the basidia, with basal clamp connections, mostly 1.5-2.5 microns wide toward bases, apically few-branched to much-branched, occasionally cylindric, unbranched, and up to 5.5 microns wide; hyphae 2-4 microns wide, thin-walled, "with numerous, conspicuous clamp connections varying from closed to keyhole to looplike, spurs frequent to scarce", false clamp connections occasional, then hyphae swollen to 5.5-7 microns wide near the septa, (Klett), spores 16 x 8 microns, slightly curved, colorless, with granular contents, laterally apiculate; basidia 16-20 microns, oblong or globose, with granular contents, the basidia are borne near the surface, not deeply embedded as in most tremellaceous fungi; no imbedded ducts and no papillae, (Lloyd)
Habitat / Range
found on Acer macrophyllum (big-leaf maple), Alnus rubra (red alder), Betula sp., Betula glandulosa, Corylus sp., Corylus californica, Corylus cornuta, (Ginns), Alnus (alder), Betula (birch), and Prunus, (Klett)
Similar Species
Exidia alba of eastern North America is similar but has different spores, (Lloyd). "Non-papillate, unicolored collections of Exidia candida are often difficult to separate from E. repanda. Perhaps the best criteria in these instances are the hypobasidia, basidiospores, and attachment to the substratum. The hypobasidia or E. candida are ellipsoidal to obovate to obpyriform and often stalked, whereas those of E. repanda are ellipsoidal without a stalk. The basidiospores of E. candida are most frequently 4.5 microns in diameter, while those of Exidia repanda generally appear slimmer in outline with the average diameter being from 3-3.5 microns. In most cases, the basidiocarps of E. candida are broadly attached, while those of E. repanda have a narrow, short, stipe-like point of attachment." (Klett, Latin names underlined and microns represented by mu).
