Summary:
{See also Dacrymyces Table.} Dacrymyces capitatus produces tiny, soft, gelatinous, cartilaginous, cushion-shaped to top-shaped or plate-shaped fruiting bodies that are pale yellow to somewhat translucent, have a short stem with a rooting base, and grow on hardwood or rarely conifers. According to McNabb (1973) it is recognized by its more or less stipitate [stemmed] habit, its typically convoluted cap at maturity, the absence of clamp connections, and the 3-septate spores with thin or slightly thickened walls and septa, (hairs at the base of the cap also being relatively constant). Arrhytidia involuta (Schwein.) Coker is considered a synonym but note that G.W. Martin found conspicuous clamp connections.

Microscopic:
spores (8)10-13 x 4-5.5 microns, elliptic-cylindric, slightly curved, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, thin-walled, with 3 septa when mature, also conidia cut off from spores 4.5-6 x 4-5, nearly round; basidia 25-30 x 3-3.5 microns, fork-shaped; cystidia not seen; hyphae 2-3 microns wide, thin-walled to thick-walled, in part finely incrusted, no clamp connections, (Breitenbach), spores 11-17 x 3.5-6(7) microns, curved-cylindric, orange in mass, "typically thin-walled, occasionally walls and septa slightly thickened, tinted, apiculate"; germination by colorless, spherical conidia and/or germ tubes; probasidia 25-52(60) x 3-5.5 microns, cylindric-subclavate, with basal septa, becoming bifurcate; hymenium consisting of basidia and occasionally simple, cylindric dikaryophyses; internal hyphae thin-walled, typically roughened, occasionally smooth, septate, without clamp connections, hyphae of stem and rooting base heavily and irregularly gelatinized, hairs on stem and base of cap simple, cylindric, septate, thin-walled or thick-walled, often with terminal cells slightly inflated, (McNabb), spores 14-18.5 x 5-7 microns, allantoid [curved sausage-shaped], early 1-3 septate, orange-yellow in mass, pale yellow by transmitted light; internal hyphae smooth, with conspicuous open clamp connections, (Martin)

Notes:
Distribution includes BC, WA, OR, ID, AB, ON, PQ, AZ, GA, IA, KS, LA, MA, MI, MS, NC, NJ, NY, and PA, (Ginns), CA (Desjardin), Finland, France, Netherlands, United Kingdom, USSR, and New Zealand, (McNabb), Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia, (Lowy), Czechoslovakia, South Africa, Tunisia, and Australia, (Reid), and Estonia (Raitviir).

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Arrhytidia involuta (Schwein.) Coker
Coniophora flavomarginata Burt
Dacrymyces involutus Schwein.
Dacrymyces stipitatus (Bourdot & Galzin) Neuhoff
Dacryomitra nuda (Berk. & Broome) Pat.