Summary:
Also included in Clubs category. Poronia punctata forms small nail-shaped fruiting bodies on horse dung, the head being white with black dots, and the stem blackish and mostly immersed in the dung.
It has been recorded and vouchered from BC by Paul Kroeger. It was evidently abundant on horse dung in the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom, but now rare there (Dennis). In Scandinavia reported rarely from Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, possibly extinct in the first three.
Fruiting body:
nail-shaped, with a long cylindric black stem buried in dung, "expanded to a flat more or less circular disc at the surface", the disc white, up to 1.5cm across, "dotted with the minute black ostioles of the perithecia", (Dennis), "nail-shaped with a distinct cylindric stem usually buried in the dung, on top expanded to form a flat cup or circular disc", disc 0.5-1.5cm across, pale buff, "dotted with the small black ostioles of the totally immersed perithecia", stem at first whitish gray becoming dark brown then black (Hansen, L.(1)), stem long, cylindric, black, fruitbody is 0.5-2cm high (Phillips)
Microscopic:
spores 18-26 x 7-12 microns, "somewhat bean-shaped", blackish brown "with a gelatinous coat", uniseriate; asci 8-spored, about 180 x 18 microns, (Dennis), spores 17-26 x 8.5-13 microns, elliptic, dark brown, "with distinct longitudinal germ slit" running the whole length of the spore [illustrated as ending within the outline of the spore], spore with gelatinous coating, uniseriate; asci 150-190 x 18-20 microns, strongly amyloid, cylindric with short stalk, "apical annulus broadly triangular in optical section" and typically 5 x 2.5 microns, (Hansen, L.), spores 18-26 x 7-12 microns with rounded ends, smooth, with short germination clefts [illustrated as ending within the outline of the spore], blackish brown; asci 8-spored, blue reaction with iodine; paraphyses not seen, (Thompson)
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