E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Gloeocystidiellum porosum (Berk. & M.A. Curtis) Donk
no common name
Stereaceae

Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.

Introduction to the Macrofungi
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Distribution of Gloeocystidiellum porosum
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Species Information

Summary:
Features include 1) growth in thin flat waxy to membranous patches on wood, 2) whitish to light ocher color, 3) a smooth to sparsely tuberculate surface, 4) elliptic, verrucose, amyloid spores, 5) sulfovanillin positive gloeocystidia with granular contents, and 6) a monomitic hyphal system with clamp connections.

Collections of Gloeocystidiellum porosum were examined from BC, ON, PQ, AZ, CT, IL, MI, MN, NH, NM, NY, NC, OH, and the United Kingdom, and it was also reported from WA, OR, AB, MB, NB, AK, CA, CO, GA, IA, MA, MD, ME, MT, NJ, PA, TN, VT, and WI, (Ginns). It occurs in Europe including "all parts of Scandinavia" (Eriksson). It also occurs in Switzerland, and Asia, (Breitenbach).
Fruiting body:
resupinate, effused [spread out], forming thin, soft, waxy, membranous patches several centimeters across, tightly attached; whitish to cream or light ocher; dull, smooth to sparsely tuberculate, when dry with fissures; "margin distinctly bounded to diffuse", (Breitenbach), effused, rather large, the largest piece seen 8cm x 4cm, 0.007-0.035cm thick, orbicular [circular] soon coalescing; ceraceous [waxy], "cream-buff" to "pale ochraceous-buff", "light ochraceous-buff" or "ochraceous-buff" when dry; "smooth, some cracked extensively"; margin up to 0.1cm wide, "abrupt to pruinose, white to pallid", (Ginns(24)), resupinate, of small or moderate dimensions, 0.005-0.02cm thick, adnate [attached tightly], ceraceous to membranaceous; white to cream, when old sometimes ochraceous; "margin generally not especially differentiated, sometimes finely byssoid, white", (Eriksson), annual, effused, at first small orbicular patches on bark, becoming confluent, 0.01-0.03cm thick, membranous to ceraceous, adherent; "ivory yellow", "light buff", or "maize yellow", older areas "pinkish cinnamon"; "smooth, occasionally with small, scattered warts", often cracking on drying, becoming deeply cracked when old; margin colored as spore-bearing surface, "narrow, thinning out, fibrillose"; subiculum white, (Nakasone), spore deposit white (Buczacki)
Microscopic:
SPORES (4.4)4.8-5.2(6.0) x (2.6)2.8-3.2(3.4) microns, elliptic to nearly cylindric, verrucose to minutely verrucose (some appearing smooth), amyloid, colorless, thin-walled, with a small, blunt apiculus; BASIDIA 4-spored, 17.0-28.0 x (3.6)4.0(4.4) microns, narrowly clavate to almost cylindric, sterigmata up to 4.0 microns long; GLOEOCYSTIDIA numerous, 50-90(170) x 8-12(14) microns, "arising either in the hymenium or from the basal hyphal layer", tubular, fusoid, or flask-shaped, "some with an elongated neck, some with a long narrow base, thin-walled, the contents yellowish green in KOH, granular", sulfo-positive but the occasional collection sulfo-negative; HYPHAE monomitic, subiculum a basal layer up to 100 microns thick "of woven but essentially parallel and horizontally arranged hyphae"; hyphae 2.0-3.5 microns wide, colorless, inamyloid, thin-walled, with clamp connections, (Ginns(24)), SPORES 4.5-5.5 x 2.5-3 microns, elliptic, sometimes somewhat flattened on one side, finely verrucose, amyloid, colorless, with droplets; BASIDIA 4-spored, 20-25 x 3.5-4 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; GLOEOCYSTIDIA 60-80 x 9-20 microns (according to literature up to 150 microns long), cylindrical to fusiform, "sometimes sinuous, narrowing abruptly into a thin hypha at the base", sulfovanillin-positive; HYPHAE monomitic: hyphae 2-3 microns wide, thin-walled, with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), SPORES 4.5-6(8) x 2.5-3.5 microns, elliptic, subovate [somewhat oval] to subcylindric [somewhat cylindric], finely verrucose (best seen on empty spore coats in Melzer''s), amyloid; BASIDIA 4-spored, 18-22 x 3-4 microns, narrowly clavate; GLOEOCYSTIDIA (= pseudocystidia) numerous, 60-150 x 8-15 microns, tubular, more or less sinuous, often coming laterally from the bearing hypha, "contents in KOH granular, oily, yellowish, in cotton blue with a number of oildrops of varying sizes, with positive reaction to sulfovanilline"; HYPHAE monomitic: hyphae 2-3 microns wide, thin-walled, with clamp connections, thin basal layer (25-50 microns) next to substrate of hyphae that are mainly parallel, "subhymenial trama of densely interwoven, vertical hyphae", (Eriksson), SPORES (4.5)5-6.5 x 3-3.5 microns, cylindric to elliptic, asperulate, amyloid, colorless, acyanophilic, thin-walled; BASIDIA 4-spored, 22-26 x 5-6 microns, clavate, colorless, thin-walled, with basal clamp connection, sterigmata 3-4 microns long; PSEUDOCYSTIDIA "numerous, arising throughout subiculum and subhymenium", embedded, 80-160 x (9)12-15 microns, obclavate to tubular, sinuose, thin-walled to slightly thick-walled, with basal clamp connection, turning blue-black in sulfobenzaldehyde; HYPHAE monomitic, SUBICULAR HYPHAE 3-4.5 microns wide, "loosely interwoven but forming a compact layer of parallel hyphae next to the substrate", colorless, thin-walled, "nodose septate, moderately branched", smooth or moderately encrusted with colorless crystals, (Nakasone)

Habitat / Range

on a variety of hardwoods and conifers, fruiting on the bark of dead twigs and branches on the ground, associated with a white rot, on Abies (fir), Acer (maple), Alnus (alder), Betula (birch), Carya (hickory), Ceanothus, Corylus (hazel), Fagus (beech), Fraxinus (ash), Juglans (walnut), Liquidambar, Picea (spruce), Pinus (pine), Populus, Prunus, Quercus (oak), Rhus, Salix (willow), Tilia (basswood), Ulmus (elm), (Ginns), on the underside of branches of hardwoods lying on the ground, spring to fall, (Breitenbach), on many kinds of substrate but prefers hardwood, (Eriksson), usually "on bark of conifer and hardwood twigs and branches", sometimes on barkless wood and associated with a white rot, (Nakasone), probably all year (Buczacki)

Taxonomic and Nomenclatural Links

Additional Range and Status Information Links

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Species References

Ginns(24) (colors in quotation marks from Ridgway), Eriksson(3), Breitenbach(2)*, Nakasone(6) (colors in quotation marks from Ridgway), Stalpers(3), Jackson(1) (discussing Corticium propinquum), Buczacki(1)*

References for the fungi

General References