E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Valdensinia heterodoxa causes a common brown concentrically ringed leaf spot on salal, mountain huckleberry, and Alaskan blueberry, identified microscopically by star-like propagules found on the leaves. Small stemmed brown fruiting bodies on the leaves are rarely found. A gradual increase in turgor forces the propagule''s radial arms against the leaf and propels it (with sufficient force for it to rise 20cm vertically) to other uninfected tissue.

It is common in BC, WA, and OR, (Lorelei Norvell, pers. comm.), and found in PQ (Redhead(44)).

Upper surface:
0.15-0.35cm wide, up to 0.7cm high, disc-shaped, concave at first becoming funnel-shaped then flat and umbilicate or convex, margins often rolled under; pale brown, (Redhead(61))

Underside:
colored as upper surface; furfuraceous, (Redhead(61))

Stem:
flaring toward the disc, colored the same as upper surface or darker toward base, (Redhead(61))

Microscopic:
identified by the unique multicellular stellate [star-like] propagules, also called conidial "staurospores", attached to hyphae in the host tissue by a central pedicel, (Norvell), spores "(15.5-) 11-9.5 x 4-4.5 (-6)" microns, smooth, colorless, inamyloid in mass, thin-walled, "mainly non-septate, becoming symmetrically or asymmetrically 1-2 septate with age, not constricted at the septa, the second septum always asymmetrically placed", mainly with two droplets, (Redhead(61)); asci 8-spored, 97-110 x 6-10 microns, cylindric to slightly clavate, inoperculate, thin-walled, tapering at base; prominent croziers present at the base of some asci; paraphyses 2-3.5 microns wide, filamentous, slightly enlarged at top, septate, (Redhead(61))