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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) a small, blackish cup densely clothed with coiled hairs that give the exterior a tomentose appearance, 2) absent (or sometimes short) stem, 3) growth on wood or ground under conifers, and 4) microscopic characters including smooth, round spores and forked paraphyses that are not thickened or coiled at the tips. This is not to be confused with Donadinia nigrella (= Plectania nannfeldtii) which is based on a different type collection.
Pseudoplectania nigrella is found at least in BC, WA, OR, ID, CA, CO, UT, and WY, (Larsen), NJ to MB, WI, AL, Jamaica, Europe, and Australia, (Seaver), Switzerland (Breitenbach), United Kingdom (Dennis), and Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, (Hansen).
Upper surface: 1.5-2.5(3)cm, irregularly cup-shaped to flat and saucer-shaped; spore-bearing upper surface brownish black, smooth, shiny; margin somewhat darker and felty with black appressed hairs, (Breitenbach), reaching 0.5-1.5cm, at first closed and nearly spherical, expanding to shallow cup-shaped or disc-shaped, "margin often wavy and slightly incurved"; upper surface concave or nearly flat, brownish black, smooth, (Seaver)
Underside: somewhat darker than upper surface and felty with black appressed hairs, (Breitenbach), black or blackish, clothed with fine hairs that are coiled and twisted, giving a woolly appearance, (Seaver)
Stem: none (Breitenbach), sessile or substipitate (short-stipitate), (Seaver)
Microscopic: spores 10-12(13) microns in diameter, round, smooth, colorless, sometimes with 1 large droplet; asci 8-spored, 250-300 x 11-13 microns, negative reaction to iodine; paraphyses filiform [thread-like], "multiply septate, tips straight and not clavate, but forked with lateral outgrowths"; hairs cylindric, dark brown, "smooth, with few septa, thin-walled, with few branches, woven together and felt-like", (Breitenbach), spores reaching 12-14 microns in diameter, round, smooth, usually containing one large oil droplet and several smaller ones; asci reaching a length of 300-325 microns and a width of 15 microns, cylindric or subcylindric with long stem-like base; paraphyses enlarged at tips and filled with brown coloring matter, reaching 4 microns wide; hairs reaching 4-6 microns and of nearly uniform width throughout their length, very long but usually coiled and twisted, pale brown, sparingly septate, (Seaver), spores 10-12 microns in diameter, round, smooth, filled with numerous small oil droplets, uniseriate; asci up to 350 x 16 microns; paraphyses slender, forked, not widened at tip, brown, (Dennis)
Habitat / Range
single, gregarious, or clustered, "in cushion-like low mosses on very rotten conifer stumps, on path embankments on bare sandy ground", according to the literature also on ground covered with needle litter, April to May, (Breitenbach), "gregarious or occasionally closely crowded", on "decaying wood in coniferous woods, especially among Sphagnum", (Seaver)
Similar Species
Pseudoplectania melaena has a long stem, and is sparingly clothed with straight or slightly flexuous [wavy] hairs, whereas P. nigrella has a short stem or no stem, and is densely clothed with coiled hairs, (Seaver). P. melaena also averages larger. Plectania species have elliptic spores: Plectania melastoma usually has orange granules on the margin and Donadinia nigrella has a distinct stem and usually fruits near melting snowbanks. See also SIMILAR section of Plectania milleri.
