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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) resupinate growth on dead hardwood, on the ground, or encrusting live plants, 2) loosely attached soft patches with a distinct margin, the color violet to pink-violet, and the surface smooth to undulating-tubercular and whitish pruinose, 3) spores that have a polar cap and sometimes a sterigmal remnant, 4), helical or hook-like basidia that are transverse septate, 5) lack of cystidia, and 6) lack of clamp connections. Helicobasidium brebissonii is included in some classifications of jelly fungi, and Breitenbach(2) list it in Auriculariaceae, but it is usually now considered to be a member of Platygloeaceae, a family in the Pucciniomycetes.
Helicobasidium brebissonii has been found in BC, WA, OR, PE, AK, AZ, IA, KS, MA, MI, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NY, OH, OK, TX, and WI, (Ginns), as well as Europe including Switzerland (Breitenbach).
Fruiting body: fully resupinate (lying flat), "attached loosely to substrate, forming thin patches several centimeters in extent", consistency soft, membranous, when dry becomes brittle; violet to pink-violet, drying gray-ocher with slight lilac tint; smooth to undulating-tuberculate [wavy with bumps], dull, whitish-pruinose; margin distinctly bounded, (Breitenbach)
Microscopic: SPORES 11-13.5 x 6-7 microns, irregularly elliptic to cylindric, some also somewhat curved, smooth, inamyloid, colorless to slightly lilac-brownish, some spores with polar cap and sometimes with attached remnant of sterigma; BASIDIA 4.5-7 microns wide, hypha-like, transversely septate, bent over and hook-like to helical, slightly lilac-brownish, sterigmata subulate [awl-shaped] to cylindric; CYSTIDIA not seen; hyphae 4-6 microns wide, somewhat thick-walled, septa without clamp connections, (Breitenbach)
Habitat / Range
on dead hardwood, on the ground, or encrusting live plants; causes violet root rot of a variety of deciduous woody plants; often on seedlings; Acer, Ambrosia, Ampelopsis, Asparagus, Carya, Catalpa, Celtis, Daucus, Fraxinus, Helianthus, Iresine, Malvaviscus, Medicago, Melia, Morus, Parthenocissus, Phytolacca, Ratibida, Rhus, Rivina, Salix, Sambucus, Solanum, Trifolium, Ulmus, Verbesina, Viguiera, Viola, (Ginns), parasitic and saprophytic on trees and shrubs, fall-spring, (Breitenbach)
Similar Species
Helicobasidium corticioides is the label for a collection by O. Ceska from Vancouver Island, British Columbia at the University of British Columbia (UBC F24797, Mushroom Observer 70008, spores 14-20 x 5-6 with microscopic drawings). It has been recorded also from Alberta, Colorado (holotype), Utah, and Wyoming, (Ginns(5)). It is distinguished from other species of Helicobasidium "by the corticioid aspect of the fructification, the basidia, which are usually coiled or loosely spiralled rather than crozier-shaped, and by the size of the basidia and spores". Spores are 14-22.5 x 6.5-12.5 microns, ovoid to cylindric, and adaxially flattened, and basidia arched, loosely spiralled, or forming one or two coils, mostly 2-septate to 3-septate, basal cells 80-160 x 6-11 microns. (Bandoni(14)).
