Claussenomyces olivaceus (Fuckel) Sherwood
no common name
Tympanidaceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
no common name
Tympanidaceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
Photograph
Species Information
Summary:
Features include tiny dark olivaceous to black fruitbodies, the disc slightly concave with a wavy margin, consistency that is fleshy when moist and leathery when dry, the narrowed base of the disc arising from a dark brown subiculum, growth superficial and scattered on resinous exudates of conifers, and microscopic characters. The description is derived from Hawksworth(1).
Microscopic:
spores 11-28 x 3.5-7 microns, "ellipsoid to fusiform, variable, simple or up to seven-septate, and sometimes becoming muriform, with a single incomplete longitudinal septum"; asci (120)150-190 x 16-19 microns, "cylindric-clavate, thin walled, not reacting in iodine, without an obvious differentiated apical pore", initially 8-spored; ascal conidia 2.0-2.5 microns in diameter, round, colorless, unicellular; paraphyses numerous, filiform [thread-like], septate, usually branched near the tip and swollen to 2.0-2.5 microns wide, the tips embedded in brown gelatinous material and forming an epithecium; "subhymenium thick, gelatinous, composed of textura intricata, nearly colourless"; excipulum up to 60 microns thick, of radially arranged hyphae with a cell lumen about 1 micron in diameter "and thick gelatinizing walls, externally dark"; conidia abundantly produced, 1.5-3 microns in diameter, nearly round but often angular by mutual compression, colorless, slightly thick-walled, aseptate, "in compact slimy masses, not catenate"; conidiogenous cells "enteroblastic, phialidic, not proliferating", "cylindrical, not or slightly tapering toward apex", colorless, smooth-walled, "with small collarette but a distinct, sometimes elongate channel", mainly 7-15 x 1.5-3 microns; conidiophores up to 20 x 1.5-3 microns, lining the cavity of the pycnidium, cylindric, colorless, "simple or irregularly dichotomously branched", bearing conidiogenous cells sympodially and 1 to 3 apically
Notes:
Collections were examined from Austria and United Kingdom and it is reported from CO, (Hawksworth(1)). It has also been found in BC (Funk(5)), and there are several collections from BC determined by A. Funk at the Pacific Forestry Centre.
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Sarea difformis is a lichen that produces dark brown to black fruitbodies on the resinous exudates of conifers, but macroscopically Claussenomyces olivaceous "can be recognized by the persistently concave disc and thin, often crisped and undulating, incurved margin", and microscopically, "the asci are quite different in structure in lacking any apical thickening, and not reacting at all with iodine" - furthermore ascospores are muriform when first formed and then produce minute, round spores directly from the original ascospores, (Hawksworth).Habitat
superficial, scattered, on resinous exudates of conifers