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Species Information
Summary: Features include a saucer-shaped to disc-shaped fruiting body with orange spore-bearing upper surface that becomes yellowish or brownish when old, cup exterior with abundant dark brown hairs, lack of a stem, growth on dung, and microscopic characters. Cheilymenia coprinaria (Cooke) Boud. was given as a synonym of Cheilymenia fimicola (Bagl.) Dennis in the online Species Fungorum accessed February 4, 2017, but MycoBank, accessed on the same date, listed them separately.
Cheilymenia fimicola is found in BC, WA, OR, and ID, and also CA, CO, and UT, (Larsen), and OR, MI, NE, OH, NC, NY, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Great Britain, (Denison).
Upper surface: 0.3-0.5(0.7)cm, saucer-shaped to disc-shaped, orange, becoming yellowish or brownish when old, (Denison), (0.1)0.3-0.7(1)cm, "at first closed but soon opening to become shallowly cup-shaped" to disc-like or somewhat cushion-shaped; orange to pale orange becoming yellow or brownish when old; smooth; "margin fringed with minute dark brown hairs, often wavy", (Arora), up to 1cm wide, at first closed, expanding and becoming scutellate to discoid; spore-bearing upper surface flat or concave, bright yellow to pale orange; margin slightly wavy, pale yellow, sparingly clothed with hairs, (Seaver), reddish orange, fading to yellowish orange when old, (Trudell)
Flesh: thin (Arora)
Underside: abundant dark brown hairs (Denison), paler than upper surface, clothed with dark hairs, (Arora)
Stem: none (Arora)
Microscopic: spores (13)14-17(20) x (6)7-9(11) microns, elliptic to nearly cylindric, smooth, without oil droplets; asci 140-165 microns long, cylindric, not blueing in iodine; paraphyses narrowly clavate, 5-7 microns broad at apices, simple, the upper third nonseptate, [presumably when fresh there are granules or droplets of yellow to red pigmented material]; hairs 175-700 microns long, and 20-30 microns wide near base, heavy-walled, 3-8 septate, unbranched but conspicuously forked and rooting at base, narrowing in upper part to sharp point, (Denison), spores (14)17-22(25) x 8-12 microns, elliptic, smooth, without oil droplets, (Arora)
Habitat / Range
scattered to gregarious, on dung, (Denison), single to densely gregarious "on dung and manure or compost, etc., fruiting in wet weather", (Arora), gregarious or scattered on dung (Seaver), on cow patties as well as the droppings of wild animals, (Trudell)
Similar Species
Cheilymenia stercorea is smaller, with hairs that differ microscopically (Denison). C. stercorea differs in having stellate 3-5-armed hairs on the lower part of the cup, (Dennis). Cheilymenia theleboloides has scattered inconspicuous hairs that differ microscopically (Denison). C. theleboloides has more yellow cups with whitish hairs, and "occurs on rotting plant remains, or horse manure and straw", (Trudell). Scutellinia crucipila is smaller and has hairs that differ microscopically, (Denison). S. crucipila "grows among mosses or on bare ground under grasses or other herbaceous plants" and "has branched brownish hairs near the base of the cup", (Trudell).
