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Species Information
Summary: Also listed in Veined, Cups and Other categories. Features include small white fruitbodies on Polytrichum and similar mosses, with the concave hymenial surface facing downward or sideways, and a short indistinct stem.
It is found in BC, WA, OR, ID, ON, CT, MT, MN, NY, and VT, (Ginns), United Kingdom (Watling), and Scandinavia (Eriksson). Collections were examined from ID, CT, Venezuela, Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, (Reid). It is encountered rarely in CA (Desjardin).
Gills: reduced to slight rugulosities (fine wrinklings) or with smooth spore-bearing surface; white drying ochraceous, (Watling), hymenophore smooth or lightly wrinkled, (Moser)
Stem: fruitbody tapers to short indistinct stem, (Eriksson), 0.5-1cm, reduced to lateral strap-like extension of cap, or as a distinct attachment round in cross-section; colored similarly to cap; bald, (Watling), 0.5-1cm, white, lateral, more rarely more or less central, (Moser)
Odor: not distinctive (Castellano)
Taste: not distinctive (Castellano)
Microscopic spores: spores 4-4.5 x 2-2.5 microns, nearly round or somewhat elliptic, tapering toward apiculus, illustrated smooth, somewhat cyanophilic, thin-walled, with one oil droplet, basidia 4-spored, 15-18 x 4.5-6 microns, clavate, with small droplets in protoplasm, without basal clamp; cystidia numerous, projecting, 35-55 x 6-7 microns, "narrowly fusiform, widest near base, apically rounded to a insignificantly rounded head", thin-walled, not incrusted; hyphal system monomitic: hyphae 2-3 microns wide, even, sparsely branched, colorless, slightly cyanophilic without clamp connections, "distinct subhymenium formed by densely interwoven hyphae", (Eriksson), spores 3-4 x 2-2.5 microns, broadly elliptic with prominent apiculus, smooth, inamyloid, thin-walled; basidia 4-spored, 18-21 x 3-4 microns, clavate, often with very long sterigmata up to 3 microns long; cystidia abundant, 35-50 x 4-4.5 microns with long narrow neck 1.5-2 microns wide, apex often obtuse or somewhat enlarged, thin-walled, colorless; cap cuticle of more or less erect groups of smooth cylindric hyphae, "adhering in groups but collapsing in age to give a strand-like appearance"; clamp connections absent, (Watling), spores 3-4 x 2-2.5 microns, inamyloid, cystidia hair-like with base swollen, to 20 microns, (Moser), spores 4-5 x 2.5-3 microns (Trudell)
Spore deposit: white (Watling)
Habitat / Range
growing on living mosses (Eriksson), on or amongst mosses and liverworts, especially of the genus Polytrichum, (Watling), late summer and fall (Trudell), summer to winter (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Arrhenia retiruga differs in being paler gray to gray brown when fresh, with larger spores (6-9 x 3.2-5 microns) and no cystidia, (Castellano).
