Summary: Ciboria gordonii is a microscopic species, included here to compare with other species of Ciboria: it was the smallest species of Ciboria described to that point. Features include a cup with a stem, pruinose surface, the stem and exterior of the cup medium brown to mottled with black, and growth on hemlock needles.
Microscopic: spores 7-14 x 3-6 microns, oval to elliptic or rarely subreniform, smooth, colorless, with 2 droplets, non-septate but becoming 1-septate at germination, uniseriate or biseriate; asci 8-spored, 75-80 x 6-8 microns, "produced from croziers, cylindric to broadly clavate, sometimes slightly expanded at the base, apex thickened, contents of ascus pore staining blue in Melzer''s reagent"; paraphyses 50-90 x 3 microns, simple but occasionally branched near base, slightly broadened in upper third, colorless, septate, "sometimes longer than the asci but not forming an epithecium"; subhymenium about 10 microns thick, of densely interwoven, light brown hyphae 1.5 microns wide; medullary excipulum up to 60 microns thick, of light brown, septate hyphae 2-3 microns wide, parallel to each other and to surface of disc; ectal excipulum up to 24 microns thick, of 2-4 layers of thin-walled, light brown to colorless, spherical cells 4-8 microns in diameter, a thin outer layer of brown covering hyphae appears granular in cross-section; margin formed from continuation of both ectal and medullary excipula; stem composed of a layer of globose cells to the outside, with a core of parallel hyphae running parallel with the stem, similar to structure of excipular tissues
Notes: It was described from BC.
Habitat and Range
Habitat
on dead retained needles of Tsuga heterophylla (Western Hemlock)