Mucronella bresadolae (Quel.) Corner
no common name
Clavariaceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
no common name
Clavariaceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
Photograph
Species Information
Summary:
Also listed in Clubs category. Fruitbodies are single or densely grouped soft wax-like white hanging spines up to 0.6cm long, growing on conifer wood or old polypores. Corner(3) considered Mucronella alba Lloyd a synonym of Mucronella bresadolae, but note the difference in spore size from the European description of Breitenbach(2). The online Species Fungorum, accessed February 17, 2012, listed Mucronella alba Lloyd as a synonym of Mucronella pendula, as does Petersen(28). Mucronella alba could be regarded as an ambiguous name, but Siegel(2) use this name Mucronella alba for what has been called Mucronella bresadolae in the Pacific Northwest.
Microscopic:
spores 5.5-6 x 4-6 microns (one collection 7-7.5 x 5.5-7 microns), nearly round, colorless, inamyloid, without droplets; basidia 4-spored, 25-35 x 4.5-6 microns, slenderly clavate; cystidia-like cells between the basidia, 25-35 x 3-4 microns, smooth and some of them sinuous; hyphae monomitic with scattered crystals, hyphae 3-14 microns wide, most septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), spores 5-8.5 x 4.5-6.3 microns, nearly round, tear-shaped, or short elliptic, pale blue amyloid; basidia 4-spored, 25-40 x 5.5-8.5 microns, sterigmata 5 microns long; cystidia frequent, sparse, or absent, 25-45 x 3-4 microns, "as narrow sterile basidia immersed or projecting -20 microns"; hymenium not thickening; hyphae 2.5-11 microns wide, thin-walled or slightly thick-walled at the base of the fruiting body, the cells up to 250 microns long, not secondarily septate, clamped, in some collections with abundant tetrahedral crystals up to 10 microns long, (Corner(3))
Notes:
Mucronella ''bresadolae'' is found at least in BC, Austria, France, and Morocco, (Corner(3)), and Switzerland (Breitenbach). Corner''s listing for BC appears to refer to R. Bandoni 116 (1958) at the University of British Columbia where it is still labeled Mucronella alba, but there are two other later UBC collections from BC labeled M. bresadolae, one of them by R. Bandoni 12743A (2000). Desjardin(6) illustrates it for CA.
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Mucronella calva has shorter spines, shorter and narrower spores, and smaller basidia, (Breitenbach). Protohydnum piceicola is a macroscopically similar jelly fungus (see Crust category), (Roberts(3)).Habitat
on rotten wood and bark (?always coniferous), (Corner(3)), on very rotten wood or old polypores, (Breitenbach)
Status Information
Synonyms
Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Clavaria bresadolae Quel.
Hericium bresadolae (Quel.) Malencon
Mucronella alba Lloyd
Mucronella fascicularis Fr. sensu Bres.