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Species Information
Summary: Features include a minute basidiomycete fruitbody that is cup-shaped or urn-shaped to saucer-shaped, with cream to ocherish upper surface, cream margin that is floccose-fringed from hairs, exterior that is tomentose from light brown hairs, stemless growth in groups on a light brown subiculum on wood, and microscopic characters. Reid notes that W.B. Cooke has a wide concept of this species that includes species with narrowly cylindric spores, broadly elliptic spores, and ovate or subglobose spores, whereas European authors recognize more than one species. The online Species Fungorum, accessed January 19, 2005 and December 17, 2013, gave the current name as Cyphellopsis anomala (Pers.) Donk, but Dictionary of the Fungi, Tenth Edition synonymizes Cyphellopsis with Merismodes.
Merismodes anomala is found in BC, WA, OR, ID, and also AB, MB, NF, NS, ON, PQ, AK, AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, PA, SC, TN, VA, VT, WI, and WV, (Ginns).
Upper surface: 0.02-0.05cm across and 0.01-0.03cm high, cup-shaped, urn-shaped, to saucer-shaped; spore-bearing upper surface cream to ocherish, smooth; margin cream, "floccose-fringed from exserted tips of the hairs", (Breitenbach), 0.05-0.3cm across, shallowly cup-like or saucer-like on a well developed subiculum, margin paler than exterior, fringed hairy, (Buczacki)
Flesh: soft when fresh, corneous and hard when dry, (Breitenbach), "soft, fragile, hard when dry"; pale ochraceous, (Buczacki)
Stem: stemless on light brown subiculum, (Breitenbach)
Microscopic: spores 8-9.5 x 3.7-4.5(5) microns, elliptic to slightly allantoid, smooth, colorless, some with droplets; basidia 4-spored, 30-40 x 5-6.5 microns, slenderly clavate, with basal clamp connection; cystidia not seen; hyphal system monomitic, hyphae 1-2 microns wide, thin-walled, with clamp connections; hairs 2-4 microns wide, up to 150 microns long, "brown, thick-walled, upper half incrusted", tip clavate and widened up to 6 microns, lighter-colored than lower part, (Breitenbach), spores 8-10 x 4-5 microns, elliptic to +/- sausage-shaped, smooth, inamyloid; cystidia absent; hyphal system monomitic; outer hairs "brown, thick walled, encrusted from halfway, tip club-shaped, paler", (Buczacki)
Spore Deposit: white (Buczacki)
Habitat / Range
"in groups or densely cespitose, sometimes covering areas decimeters in size", on dead wood of hardwoods, shrubs, and more rarely of Picea (spruce), with and without bark; throughout the year, (Breitenbach), on a variety of hardwoods, wood, dead bark, twigs and branches, slash, logs; associated with a white rot, (Ginns), on rotting and fallen hardwood, especially Fagus (beech), and often on the cut surfaces of felled timber, in large densely tufted groups, all year, (Buczacki), spring, summer, fall, winter
Similar Species
Merismodes fasciculata is practically identical macroscopically except that it is not cespitose but grows clustered in small groups, mainly on Alnus, and microscopically, spores measure 6.5-8.5 x (2)2.5-3.3 microns, and hairs are sinuous toward the end, with the tip obtuse not clavate, (Breitenbach). M. fasciculata has spores 6-8 x 2-2.5 microns, (Buczacki). Cyphellopsis confusa has spores (5.5)7-8.2 x 2-2.2 microns (Reid). See also SIMILAR section of Merismodes ochracea.
