Coccomyces arbutifolius Sherwood
no common name
Rhytismataceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
no common name
Rhytismataceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
Photograph
Species Information
Summary:
Coccomyces arbutifolius is included as an example of the ascomycete order Rhytismatales. It produces tiny, densely gregarious fruitbodies on leaves of Arbutus menziesii. They develop subdermally and open irregularly by teeth or a slit, on discolored spots. Unlike Coccomyces dentatus, the discolored spots they grow on are not bleached or bounded by a dark line, but they are marked by a faint whitish bloom.
Microscopic:
spores 75-100 x 2.5 microns, nonseptate, prominently sheathed; asci 8-spored, 120-150 x 15-20 microns, clavate, long-stalked; paraphyses filiform, simple or occasionally once-branched, enlarged to 2.5 microns at the apex; pycnidia scattered among the apothecia, subepidermal, hypophyllous, "flattened, irregular in outline, dark brown, consisting of a covering layer of dark brown isodiametric cells" 2.5 microns in diameter "and a basal palisade of colorless, simple conidiophores" 15 x 1.5 microns, "with a narrow neck and no collarette"; conidia "simple, colorless, bacilliform", 3.5-5 x 1.0 microns
Notes:
It was described from Vancouver BC.
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Coccomyces dentatus grows on bleached areas (of the leaf) that are bounded by a dark line, and open in a quadratic to hexagonal form. Asci and ascospores are smaller.Habitat
densely gregarious, on leaves of Arbutus menziesii