Summary:
Features include 1) depressed-spherical to hemispheric, hard fruiting bodies growing on hardwood, 2) surface that is "blackened and asperulate or varnished in age", 3) interior with alternating color zones, and 4) spores that are large, elliptic, and generally regular (compared with those of Daldinia grandis). (Stadler et al. 2004).
Daldinia loculatoides is found in BC and the United Kingdom, (Stadler).
Fruiting body:
1.5-3.5cm across, 1-3.5cm high when single (aggregated stroma 8cm long x 6cm wide x 3.5cm high), hemispheric to depressed-spherical; "blackened and asperulate or varnished in age"; with inconspicuous perithecial mounds; dull reddish brown granules immediately under surface, with dense KOH-extractable pigments livid purple; flesh between the perithecia pithy to woody, and brown, flesh below the perithecia layer of alternating zones, the darker narrow ones 0.02-0.06cm thick, pithy to woody, and dark brown, the lighter ones 0.06-0.16cm thick and "greyish brown to brown, gelatinous when fresh but very hard when dry, becoming pithy to woody and loculate with age, persistent"; perithecia 0.03-0.06cm across, 0.08-0.13cm high, tubular, monostichous, ostioles punctiform
Microscopic:
spores 15-19(21) x 7-9(10) microns, elliptic, "slightly inequilateral to equilateral with broadly or, less frequently, narrowly rounded ends, frequently reminiscent of a Rugby ball", unicellular, dark brown, with straight germ slit spore-length on more convex side, perispore indehiscent in 10% KOH, epispore smooth; asci fragmentary, 90-110 x 12-14 microns, with apical ring turning blue in Melzer''s reagent, discoid, 4-4.5 x 0.75-1 microns
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