Microscopic: spores 5.5-9 x 3-4 microns, usually 7 x 3.5 microns, kidney-shaped, elliptic or ovoid, smooth, inamyloid, thin-walled, nonseptate, uniseriate in lower part of ascus, occasionally biseriate in upper part; asci 8-spored, cylindric to cylindric-clavate, 53-75 microns long, 4-5.5 microns wide in upper part, 3-3.5 microns in lower part, lacking croziers, apices thickened but partially penetrated by the papillate cytoplasmic body, wall amyloid in Melzer''s after treatment in hot KOH solutions, occasionally filled with numerous conidia, (Redhead(43)), spores colorless, paraphyses lacking, (Mains)
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Neolecta irregularis of eastern North America and Japan, for which N. vitellina has frequently been mistaken, is similar: N. vitellina is narrower, paler, more narrowed in upper part, with smaller asci and ascospores, and produces phialoconidia - ascospores of N. irregularis are 5.5-10 x 3.5-5 microns, usually 8 x 4 microns, and asci are 100-135 microns long, 5-7 microns wide in upper part, 3.5-4 microns wide in lower part. Clavulinopsis laeticolor, Clavulinopsis fusiformis, and Clavaria gracillima are all basidiomycetes.
Habitat
needle beds and moss carpets usually on ravine or hill slopes, August to October