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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) resupinate growth on wood, 2) a whitish to creamy yellow fruitbody that is smooth at first, developing conic spines but practically always with smooth hymenium remaining in between, the tips of the spines brush-like under 50x lens, the margin indistinct at first, becoming more distinct, 3) spores that are elliptic, smooth, inamyloid, and colorless, with one to a few oil droplets, 4) cystidial capitate hyphae that are frequent, the head normally encrusted, and 5) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae with clamp connections, when young more or less cyanophilic, when old having lots of crystals in the hyphal texture and attached to hyphae in the spines.
Hyphodontia granulosa has been found in BC, ON, PQ, AK, AZ, CO, and MN, (Ginns), BC, TN, Austria, Germany, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and China, (Langer), Switzerland (Breitenbach), and all parts of Scandinavia, from Denmark to north Lappland, (Eriksson).
Fruiting body: resupinate, effused [spread out], adnate [firmly attached]; creamish white to cream yellow, when postmature pale ochraceous; at first smooth with sparse, small, conic aculei [spines], "which then grow bigger and denser but practically always with easily visible smooth hymenium between the aculei, the subicular hymenium at first porose, then almost continuous"; tips of spines finely penicillate [brush-like] under 50x lens from projecting cystidia, especially in young fruitbodies; margin when young indistinctly thinning out, then more determinate [well demarcated], (Eriksson), resupinate, tightly attached, forming thin, membranous-crustose patches several centimeters to decimeters across, consistency soft, chalky; white to cream, also ocher-brownish when old; "arachnoid-smooth when young, then with scattered papillae and when fully grown with distinct, short and pointed, fringed spines, between the spines always with visible smooth subiculum"; margin thin, (Breitenbach), spines up to about 0.05cm long (Langer)
Microscopic: SPORES 5-6 x 3.5-4.5 microns, elliptic, smooth, thin-walled, with one (or a few) oil droplets, "in herbarium specimens often as irregular oily bodies, eventually disappearing"; BASIDIA 4-spored, at first subclavate, then subcylindric with median suburniform constriction, mostly 18-20 x 4-5 microns (in young hymenia often longer, up to 25 microns), with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA none, but "cystidial capitate hyphae frequent in the hymenium and in the aculeal apices", the head normally encrusted but the encrustation often disappearing in slides, "differentiation of the sterile hyphal ends varying from simple obtuse hyphal ends to capitate, often swollen organs" that could be regarded as cystidioles or even cystidia; HYPHAE monomitic, 2-3 microns wide, distinct, colorless, "with thin or slightly thickened walls", with clamp connections, "rather straight and sparsely branched" in the center of the aculei, "irregularly intertwined and densely branched in the subiculum, in the mature subhymenium thinner and denser, more or less perpendicular to the hymenial surface"; young hyphae more or less cyanophilic; "in old specimens lots of crystals in the hyphal texture and attached to the aculeal hyphae", (Eriksson), SPORES 5-6.5 x 4-5 microns, oval, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, with droplets; BASIDIA 4-spored, 20-25 x 4-5 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA: cystidia-like capitate hyphal ends, 30-45 x 2.5-4.5 microns, smooth, the distal capitate ends up to 7.5 microns across; HYPHAE monomitic; projecting hyphae of the spines 2.5-4 microns wide, thin-walled, incrusted with crystals; hyphae of the subhymenium branched, thin-walled, with clamp connections, (Breitenbach)
Habitat / Range
on decayed wood, generally of conifers but often also on hardwood, (Eriksson), on dead wood of conifers and hardwoods, "on the upper and lower sides of trunks and branches, both fallen and standing or attached respectively, as well as also on the sides of stumps"; throughout the year, (Breitenbach), on Abies (fir), Chamaecyparis nootkatensis (Alaska-cedar), Picea (spruce), Pinus (pine), Populus, Quercus (oak), Robinia (locust), Thuja plicata (Western Red-cedar), (Ginns)
Similar Species
Xylodon breviseta has somewhat smaller spores and a different arrangement of spines: while as a rule these are +/- far apart in H. granulosa and the smooth hymenium remains clearly visible between them, they are close together in X. breviseta so that the hymenium is almost covered up, (Breitenbach). X. breviseta can be similar but H. granulosa is usually recognizably different due to its whitish even fruitbody with sparse distinct spines and continuous subicular hymenium; however, some forms are close to X. breviseta and then the subtle microscopic differences must be used: X. breviseta has slightly smaller spores and less dense, more distinct hyphae, (Eriksson). Hyphodontia spathulata generally has flattened spines that are longer, and projecting hyphae are somewhat different, (Eriksson).
