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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) resupinate growth on bark of conifers, 2) corticioid, effused, readily confluent fruitbodies that are white, aging cream to pale yellowish, with a powdery texture, cracked with drying, the margins adnate, and finally abrupt, 3) spores that are nearly round, finely spiny, amyloid, and relatively small, 4) a hymenium consisting of obscured basidial elements, simple paraphysoids, deep-seated pseudocystidia that darken in sulphobenzaldehyde, and acanthophyses, and 5) context that is monomitic with tips of hyphal branches capped by prongs.
Acanthophysium weirii has been recorded from BC, OR, ID, AK, AZ, MI, and MT, (Ginns(5)).
Fruiting body: "corticioid, readily confluent, indefinitely effused", 0.02-0.08cm thick; "white when fresh, aging cream to cartridge-buff colored"; "deeply rimose to areolate on drying"; texture farinose-pulverulent [powdery], "pruinose-pulverulent toward the thinner margins"; margins at first indeterminate and adnate, finally determinate and abrupt, (Lemke)
Microscopic: SPORES 5-7 x 5-6 microns, nearly round, slightly flattened adaxially, echinulate [finely spiny] in Melzer''s reagent, amyloid, firm-walled, apiculate; catahymenium consisting of obscured basidial elements, simple paraphysoids, deep-seated pseudocystidia, and acanthophyses; BASIDIA (2)4-spored, 30-45 x 5-7 microns, flexuous-cylindric to subclavate, basidioles "subclavate to clavate, maturing by an external prolongation"; PARAPHYSOIDS scattered, 3-4 microns wide, cylindric, simple to singly branched; PSEUDOCYSTIDIA (macrocystidia) 55-80 x 5-6(8) microns, flexuous-cylindric, rarely with an apical gemma, contents of pseudocystidia yellowish in KOH, darkening in sulphobenzaldehyde; ACANTHOPHYSES cylindric, mostly 3-4 microns wide, basal part thin-walled and naked, aculeate-pronged part semi-solid, borne at apex, these terminal pronged parts seen to advantage in Melzer''s reagent, "separable and then appearing as free-floating fragments" measuring 7-15 x 4.5-6 microns; CONTEXT monomitic, composed of hyphae that are 1.5-3 microns wide, irregular, branched, clamped, walls thin to partially thickened, "tips of hyphal branches capped by a semisolid, aculeate-pronged apex", (Lemke)
Habitat / Range
recorded from bark of conifers, (Lemke), Abies concolor (White fir), A. grandis (Grand Fir), Larix laricina (Tamarack), L. occidentalis (Western Larch), P. sitchensis (Sitka Spruce), Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas-fir), Thuja plicata (Western Red-cedar), Tsuga heterophylla (Western Hemlock), (Ginns(5))
Similar Species
Aleurodiscus spiniger has similar acanthophyses but spores are larger, (Lemke). Other Acanthophysium species do not have spiny spores, (and A. weirii may not belong in this genus), (Ginns(23)). See also SIMILAR section of Aleurodiscus occidentalis.
