E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
{See also Dacrymyces Table.} Dacrymyces chrysocomus is characterized by small cup-shaped fruiting bodies, large spores with thickened walls and thick septa, and the presence of a cortex, (McNabb 1973). It is recognized by small cup-shaped fruitbodies, large thick-walled spores, the palisade covering of sterile surfaces and clamp connections (Reid).

D. chrysocomus is found in BC, WA, and GA, (Ginns), and France, Finland, Sweden, and United Kingdom, (McNabb). It has been recorded from Estonia, Germany, Russia, and Spain, (Reid).

Fruiting body:
0.1-0.4cm across, up to 0.25cm high, at first pulvinate [cushion-shaped], becoming centrally depressed, finally cup-shaped, consistency gelatinous, sessile or substipitate, gregarious; yellow to orange-yellow when fresh, drying reddish brown, (McNabb), 0.15-0.25cm across, up to 0.1cm high, "at first tuberculate, then patelliform or flattened-discoid with convex margins", gelatinous; pale yellow; externally covered with hairs, (Raitviir), "at first forming smooth, pulvinate, firm-gelatinous yellow or orange pustules" up to 0.05cm across, becoming cylindric with depressed top, finally cup-shaped, reaching 0.15cm across and appearing either sessile or subsessile [with almost no stem], (Reid), spore deposit white (Buczacki)

Microscopic:
spores 24-28(32) x 7.5-10(11) microns, typically broadly and bluntly fusiform [spindle-shaped] but occasionally nearly round to broadly elliptic (then 14-20 x 10-16 microns), spores tinted, apiculate, becoming thick-walled with thick septa, transversely 7-septate with 1-3(5) longitudinal septa; protobasidia 58-86 x 5.5-7.5 microns, cylindric to cylindric-subclavate, with basal clamp connections, becoming bifurcate; hymenium "confined to interior of cup, composed of basidia and occasionally simple, cylindrical dikaryophyses"; internal hyphae "thin-walled, smooth or roughened, clamp connections present", (McNabb), spores 17-23.5 x 6.5-8.5 microns, almost cylindric, "slightly bent or flattened on one side, at first without septa or with unclear septa, then up to 8-cellular, pale yellow"; basidia 50-70 x 4-5 microns, clavate; hyphae thin-walled, smooth, with clamp connections; external hairs 20-50 x 4-8 microns, clavate, thick-walled cortical, (Raitviir), spores 16.0-24.0 x 7.75-8.75 microns, varying from elliptic to slightly allantoid, becoming transversely 3-7(8)-septate and at maturity developing also a number of longitudinal septa and so appearing strikingly muriform; sterile surfaces are covered with a palisade of hyphal endings, which are mostly simple but very occasionally forked near apex, these palisade elements, 22-45 microns long, "have thick glassy walls and are either subcylindric or clavate with the apex 4.75-6 microns wide", (Reid)