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Species Information
Summary: Features include a blue green fruitbody on wood with a central to slightly off-center stem and microscopic characters including granularly roughened tomentum hyphae. (The close relative C. aeruginascens has off-center stem, smaller spores and smooth tomentum hyphae). Blue-green staining of wood is more commonly seen than the fruitbodies. The description is derived from Dixon except where specified.
Collections were examined from WA, OR, ID, and also PQ, CA, IN, MI, MN, NH, NY, OH, PA, WY, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Ukraine, United Kingdom, China, India, Japan, Philippines, and Russia, (Dixon). B. Callan has determined collections from BC of both Chlorociboria aeruginosa and C. aeruginascens deposited at the Pacific Forestry Centre.
Upper surface: less than 0.5cm across, cup-shaped to rarely convex-flat, "the edges of the disc enrolling to the point of often touching"; color varying even in the same collection from orange-yellow to almost concolorous with the exterior (underside) to light pea-green when fresh, becoming slightly darker to greenish black on drying, (Dixon), less than 0.5cm, "turquoise to greenish or olivaceous", (Trudell), yellowish to pale green (Hansen, L.)
Flesh: the stem on breaking shows an aeruginous cortex with orange-yellow interior (Dixon), yellow-orange (Trudell), orange-yellow (Arora), orange flesh not observed in at least some Washington collections, (M. Beug, pers. comm.)
Underside: aeruginous when fresh, becoming bluish-aeruginous on drying; bald or finely tomentose, pustulate, often vertically ribbed or rugose, especially on drying
Stem: less than 0.3cm x 0.05-0.1cm, central to slightly off-center; colored as exterior; pustulate (often more so than exterior), (Dixon), usually arising singly (Trudell)
Microscopic: spores (8)9-14(15) x 2-4 microns (average 13 x 3 microns), fusiform-elliptic, colorless or with light green contents, unicellular to submedian 1-septate, with 2 prominent droplets and/or with several smaller droplets, irregularly biseriate, spores often germinating in the ascus by unipolar or bipolar germ tubes, with occasional round to nearly round microconidia 1.0-2.5 microns in diameter "being produced at the ends of the germ tube and floating free in the mounting media"; asci 8-spored, (57)68-80(95) x (4)5-7(7.5) microns; paraphyses scarcely extending beyond asci, (1)1.5(2) microns wide, filiform, blunt at tip, colorless, septate, branching near base; ectal excipulum gives rise "to few to numerous, straight or coiled, strongly granularly roughened tomentum hyphae" (if tomentum seems absent, check the margin of the fruitbody), (Dixon), spores 9-14 x 2-4 microns (Trudell)
Habitat / Range
single to gregarious on decayed and barkless wood; spring, summer, and fall
Similar Species
Chlorociboria aeruginascens has a stem that is usually off-center (infrequently central), whereas the stem of Chlorociboria aeruginosa is usually central (rarely off-center). C. aeruginascens often has several fruitbodies arising from each darkly pigmented irregularly shaped fundament or "stromatic mass", whereas C. aeruginosa arises singly from scarcely differentiated stromatic mass. Spores of C. aeruginascens are 5-7(10) x 1.0-1.5(2.4) microns, asci are (40)50-65(75) x 3-4(5) microns and the ectal excipulum gives rise "to few to numerous, coiled or sometimes straight, smooth-walled tomentum hyphae". (Dixon, who also describes interior stem flesh as orange yellow in C. aeruginosa and bluish aeruginous in C. aeruginascens). C. aeruginascens has larger fruitbodies up to 0.7cm (as opposed to less than 0.5cm), several often arising from a common base instead of arising singly, flesh that is the same color as the exterior instead of yellow-orange, and small spores 5-8 x 1-2 microns, (Trudell).
