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Species Information
Summary: {See also Hemimycena Table.} Features include 1) small size, 2) white color, 3) a pruinose cap, 4) a thread-like pruinose stem that is sometimes eccentric to lateral, 5) growth on bits of bark, 6) narrowly fusoid, smooth, inamyloid spores, 7) capitate corkscrew-like pileocystidia and similar caulocystidia, and 8) subulate cheilocystidia. The description derived from Redhead(31) except where noted.
Hemimycena tortuosa has been found at least in BC and was previously known from England and France, (Redhead(31)), as well as in Europe. There are numerous collections from BC at the University of British Columbia.
Cap: 0.075-0.7cm across, convex, sometimes subumbonate, margin "incurved when young, entire or becoming crisped and lobed", occasionally fruitbodies somewhat multicapped; white; pruinose at x20 magnification, "opaque or faintly translucent-striate marginally"
Flesh: very thin; white, (Buczacki)
Gills: narrowly adnate to somewhat adnexed, moderately spaced, narrowly ventricose, subgills in 1-4 tiers, gills occasionally branched and with anastomoses; white
Stem: 0.1-0.6cm x 0.01-0.05cm, widening downward, central to off-center, cartilaginous, hollow; white; "pruinose under magnification, sometimes beaded with clear drops", often with a small basal weft of hyphae or somewhat insititious
Odor: not distinctive
Taste: not distinctive
Microscopic spores: spores 7.5-10 x 3-3.5 microns, fusoid [spindle-shaped] to narrowly elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, thin-walled; basidia 4-spored, 21-33.5 x 5.5-6 microns, elongate-clavate, scarcely projecting when mature, agglutinated when dried; cheilocystidia abundant, forming a sterile margin, 15-21 x 4.5-5.5 microns, fusoid to subulate [tapered to a point at top], thin-walled, colorless; gill trama: hyphae similar to cap trama hyphae, most slightly inflated; pileipellis "a dense turf of heterogeneous elements on repent, noninflated, diverticulate, clamped hyphae", pileocystidia abundant, one form prominently projecting, 33-52 x 4.5-6.5 microns, "capitate and corkscrew-like, with slightly inflated bases often covered with coralloid processes", the second form "obtusely cylindric, much shorter, usually grading into coralloid processes"; cap trama: "hyphae interwoven, slightly inflated in the subpellis and subhymenium areas", 3.5-8.2 microns in diameter, smooth, colorless, inamyloid, clamped, walls pronounced to unevenly thickened; caulopellis: hyphae similar to the pileipellis hyphae, caulocystidia abundant over the entire stem, similar to the pileocystidia; stem trama: hyphae parallel, often inflated, 3.5-17.3 microns in diameter, colorless, clamped, walls pronounced to unevenly thickened
Spore deposit: white (Buczacki)
Habitat / Range
"loose bark of senescent deciduous and coniferous trees in wet coastal forests", (Redhead), on wood and bark of hardwoods and conifers, "sometimes on undersides of large fallen logs and also on small woody fragments at stream- and pond-sides", fall, winter, spring, (Buczacki)
Similar Species
No other Hemimycena species have the combination of capitate corkscrew-like pileocystidia and caulocystidia, subulate cheilocystidia, and narrowly fusoid spores. Hemimycena cephalotricha (Joss.) Singer of Europe "also has capitate corkscrew-like pileocystidia, but has broader spores" 4-5.5 microns wide," obtuse cystidia, and grows on oak leaves in Europe" according to Kuehner. (Redhead(31)).
