Summary: Features include a small, saucer-shaped fruitbody with a white spore-bearing upper surface dotted with violet protruding tips of asci, white exterior covered with fine white granules especially at the margin, growth on dung, and microscopic characters including spores that become violet with lighter longitudinal anastomosing striae.
Microscopic: spores 16-20 x 9-10 microns, elliptic, at first colorless then violet, ornamented with lighter "longitudinal, anastomosing striae with strongly swelling (up to 19 x15 microns), unilateral, gelatinous cap", at first uniseriate, finally biseriate; asci 8-spored, 190-226 x 16-24 microns, cylindric-clavate, with slightly curved stem, rounded at top, when young wall amyloid; paraphyses 1.5-2.5 microns thick, cylindric, simple or branched, septate, forked, swollen or irregular in upper part, 2.5-7 microns wide at tip, colorless, embedded in somewhat granular colorless mucus, (Brummelen)
Notes: Ascobolus sacchariferus is found at least in BC, WA, CA, (Larsen), and Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, (Hansen), and was examined from the Netherlands (Brummelen).
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Ascobolus albidus has spores 25.5-29.5 x 12-13.5 microns.
Habitat
scattered on dung of deer (Brummelen)
Synonyms
Synonyms and Alternate Names: Ryparobius monascus Mouton Thelebolus nanus Heimerl.