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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) small cups thickly set with white hairs on the outside and margin, the upper surface yolk-yellow to orange, 2) short stem, 3) growth on larch or sometimes other conifers, and 4) microscopic characters.
Lachnellula occidentalis is found in BC, PA, and VT, (Seaver), Switzerland (Breitenbach), and Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, (Hansen). There are collections from BC at the Pacific Forestry Centre.
Upper surface: 0.1-0.3(0.5)cm across, goblet-shaped when young, then cup-shaped to saucer-shaped; spore-bearing upper surface yolk-yellow to orange, smooth; margin thickly set with white hairs, strongly inrolled when dry, (Breitenbach), reaching 0.1-0.3cm across, at first spherical and closed, "opening in a roundish form, the margin incurved, later expanding and becoming saucer-shaped under moist conditions, laterally compressed and closed when dry"; spore-bearing surface salmon-orange, (Seaver), spore-bearing surface ochraceous to orange (Hansen)
Flesh: fleshy (Seaver)
Underside: thickly set with white hairs (Breitenbach), densely clothed with white hairs (Seaver)
Stem: short (Breitenbach, Seaver)
Microscopic: spores 12-17 x 3.5-6 microns, fusiform-elliptic [spindle-shaped - elliptic], smooth, colorless, uniseriate to biseriate; asci 8-spored, 110 x 9-10 microns, not turning blue in iodine; paraphyses filiform [thread-like], septate, forked, submoniliform toward tips [with constrictions at septa to give the effect of swollen cells like a string of long beads]; hairs colorless, thin-walled, septate, finely encrusted, tips blunt, (Breitenbach), spores 10-18 x 4-7 microns, elliptic, obliquely uniseriate, becoming one-septate on germination; asci 8-spored, reaching a length of 130 microns and a width of 12 microns, clavate; paraphyses filiform [thread-like], swollen at tips, 1-2 microns wide; hairs long, 3-4 microns wide, flexuous, roughened on outside; microconidia 2-5 x 1-1.5 microns, elliptic, or allantoid, simple, conidial stage "consisting or a fleshy stroma with irregular labyrinthiform cavities in which the microconidia are abstricted from the tips of slender, pointed, verticillately branched sporophores", (Seaver), spores 18-20 x 7-9 microns, elongate-elliptic; asci 120-150 x 10-12 microns, paraphyses exceeding the asci, monilioid, 1.5-2.5 microns wide with tip 4-5 microns wide; hairs cylindric, 2.5-4 microns wide, colorless, (Hansen)
Habitat / Range
gregarious on dead branches of Larix (larch) still with bark, (sometimes also on old cankers), Picea (spruce), according to literature also on other conifers; March to December, (Breitenbach), abundant, scattered, or grouped, on species of larch (Seaver)
Similar Species
Lachnellula willkommii has larger spores and does not have submoniliform paraphyses, (Breitenbach). Lachnellula suecica has round spores, (Breitenbach). Lachnellula agassizii has smaller spores. See also SIMILAR section of Lachnellula calyciformis.
