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.
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)
Notes: 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.
Habitat and Range
Habitat
on horse dung (Dennis, Hansen, L.), gregarious on horse dung during summer and fall (Thompson), fall (Phillips)