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Species Information
Summary: Also listed in Jelly category. Heterotextus alpinus has gelatinous, orange to yellow, top-shaped to cup-shaped fruitbodies that are common on conifer wood in spring. It is characterized within the genus by tardily 3-septate spores and long-cylindric conidia. The online Species Fungorum, accessed December 9, 2013, gave the current name as Guepiniopsis alpina (Tracy & Earle) Brasf. It is not edible (Phillips). It is abundant during spring snow-melt, (Lincoff).
Heterotextus alpinus is found in BC, WA, OR, ID, ON, AR, AZ, CA, CO, MT, NM, UT, and WY, (Ginns), Argentina and Chile, (Lowy), and the United Kingdom (Reid), and is reported from Argentina and Japan, (McNabb).
Upper surface: 0.3-1cm in width and about the same in depth, cup-shaped, becoming expanded; "bright orange to pallid amber when moist, deep orange red when dry"; upper spore-bearing surface smooth or nearly so, more or less grooved-ribbed, (Martin), up to 1cm high, with stem and cap, cap cup-shaped, 0.6-1cm in diameter; bright orange to pallid amber when fresh, drying dark orange-red, (McNabb), 0.3-2.5cm, top-shaped to cone-shaped or cup-shaped; yellow to orange; smooth, (Arora)
Flesh: consistency of fruiting body gelatinous (McNabb), consistency flabby to gelatinous, (Arora)
Underside: more or less grooved-ribbed, the exterior of the expanded portion more or less tuberculate (with bumps), (Martin), grooved-ribbed, roughened, and somewhat tuberculate [with bumps], (McNabb)
Stem: central and short (McNabb), small, narrowed point of attachment, (Arora)
Microscopic: spores 15-17.5 x 5-6 microns, allantoid (curved sausage-shaped), at first simple, becoming 3-4-septate; conidia elongate, up to 4.5 x 1.5 microns; basidia 40-50 microns long before branching and 4-5 microns wide; "cortex composed of a palisade layer of vesicular hairs, mostly 40-70 microns in length and 15-20 microns thick, varying from broadly pyriform to nearly cylindrical, with a narrow lumen and thick, gelatinized walls, rough exteriorly, often elongated at the apex into an obtuse beak; interior of the basidiocarp composed of loosely interwoven, extremely gelatinous hyphae, with numerous well-defined clamp-connections", (Martin), spores 14.5-16.5(18) x 4.5-5.5 microns, "cylindrical to slightly curved-cylindrical, thin-walled with thin septa, tinted, apiculate", becoming tardily 3-septate at maturity, germination by colorless cylindric conidia, to 4.5 x 1.5 microns; probasidia 35-53(65) x 4-5.5 microns, cylindric-subclavate with basal clamp connections, becoming bifurcate; hymenium confined to interior of cup, consisting of basidia; internal hyphae "thin-walled, smooth or roughened, clamp connections present"; cortex and stem "covered by a palisade of vesicular cells with thick, gelatinous walls and reduced lumina, varying in shape from broadly obpyriform to almost cylindrical, externally roughened basally, typically elongated apically into a smooth, obtuse beak, 35-75-(95) x 12-25 microns", (McNabb), spore deposit yellowish (Phillips), spores borne on concave surface of cone, (Arora)
Spore Deposit: yellowish
Habitat / Range
gregarious on coniferous wood (McNabb), scattered to gregarious "on conifer logs, stumps, branches, twigs, etc.; fruiting in the spring (usually as or just after the snow melts)", rarely in summer or fall, (Arora)
Similar Species
Heterotextus luteus is smaller and has 5-7(9)-septate spores, (McNabb). Dacrymyces and Tremella have a different shape. Dacrymyces chrysocomus has a yellow cup-shaped fruitbody, larger spores, and a preference for hardwoods, (Arora). Ditiola peziziformis is velvety on the undersurface (McKnight). Cup fungi are not gelatinous, (Arora). Cup fungi are brittle, and very different microscopically, (Lincoff).
