Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) a spherical, brown fruitbody that is floccose or powdery at first, 2) a smooth, shiny, brown interior, 3) numerous, small, irregular, grayish brown eggs that have a cortex of much branched, thick-walled, densely fused, inseparable hyphae, and 4) growth on wood including driftwood.
Nidularia pulvinata is found at least in BC where it is fairly common on driftwood, ON, and SC; it is widely distributed but rarely abundant in North America, (Brodie).
Nest: 0.2-1cm across, 0.2-1cm high, spherical or nearly spherical, without stem; often "tubercular from the pressure on" the eggs, (Brodie)
Outer Surface: golden brown to reddish brown, mostly deep cinnamon brown, fading to dull gray-buff; at first floccose or powdery, becoming smoother when old, (Brodie)
Inner Surface: brown; smooth, shiny, (Brodie)
Microscopic: spores 6-10 x 4-7 microns, colorless; cortex of egg of much branched, thick-walled, densely fused, inseparable hyphae, (Brodie)
Habitat / Range
on a variety of kinds of old wood, occasionally on driftwood; moist mixed hardwoods in Ontario, fairly common on driftwood in BC, (Brodie)
Similar Species
Nidularia deformis is very similar except for the eggs which are lenticular, reddish brown, wrinkled when dry and have a cortex composed of thick-walled, separable hyphae that are sparsely branched, but "It may be precarious to separate the two above entities on the basis of the colour of the peridioles; in the material that has been seen, both European and American, there is considerable variation in the shade of brown displayed by the peridioles. The nature of the hyphae of the cortex may prove to be a more reliable criterion for separation", (Brodie, discussing Nidularia farcta). A third undescribed species may occur in North America that is "macroscopically similar to N. farcta but differs in the cortical hyphae of the peridioles being much branched, which is intermediate between those of N. farcta with simple very sparsely branched hyphae and N. pulvinata with much-branched densely interwoven hyphae", (Palmer in Brodie).
