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Species Information
Summary: Features include a bright red to orange shallow cup-shaped stemless fruiting body with dark brown bristle-like hairs on the margin and exterior, growth on wood or soil, and microscopic characters including hairs with rootlets at the base.
Scutellinia scutellata is found in BC, WA, OR, ID, and also AB, AK, CA, CO, and NM, (Larsen), AL, IN, IA, LA, MI, NC, NY, VA, United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden, (Denison).
Upper surface: 0.2-1.2cm wide, cup-shaped becoming shallowly concave or disc-shaped; orange to red, rarely paler with a pinkish or salmon cast, (Denison), 0.5-1(2)cm wide, "spherical and knoblike when young, then conical to saucer-shaped, expanded at maturity to become flat and disk-shaped with a turned-up margin"; bright scarlet; margin thickly fringed with dark brown bristle-like hairs, (Breitenbach)
Flesh: very thin (Arora)
Underside: covered with dark brown bristle-like hairs (Breitenbach), paler on lower surface (Lincoff(1)), light brown, clothed with stiff dark brown or blackish hairs, (Dennis)
Stem: none (Breitenbach)
Microscopic: spores (15)17-19(23) x (9)11-14(17) microns, average length/width 1.5, "sculpturing small, 0.1-1.0 microns broad, freely anastomosing warts, not visible in optical section", containing one or more droplets; asci 8-spored, 240-320 x 15-20 microns; paraphyses subcylindric to narrowly clavate, 3-5 microns wide in lower part, 5-9 microns wide in upper part, simple or rarely branched in lower part; rooting hairs abundant to scattered (100)200-700(1300) microns long, "the longest ones concentrated at the margin, 2-12-septate, dark brown, pointed, straight or slightly curved at the base, not abruptly crooked, simple; superficial hairs usually present", (Denison), spores 19-21 x 13-13.5 microns, broadly elliptic, colorless, with granular dots, with many small droplets when young; asci 8-spored, 253-266 x 18-20 microns, inamyloid; paraphyses clavate, up to 10 microns wide at tip; hairs to 1000(2000) microns x 45 microns, dark brown, thick-walled, with multiple thin septa, ending in sharp point, base with rootlets, (Breitenbach), hairs up to 1000 microns with forked bases rooted in the flesh, sap of paraphyses green in iodine, (Dennis)
Habitat / Range
scattered to gregarious "on rotten wood, bark, or soil; less often on a variety of other substrates: e.g., wood ashes, decaying leaves, and rotting sporophores of Fomes spp.; throughout the growing season", (Denison), gregarious to thickly clustered, sometimes single, on damp rotten wood, (Breitenbach), spring, summer, fall, (Bacon)
Similar Species
Scutellinia umbrarum has larger spores with distinct rounded warts evenly spread over the spore (Denison). Scutellinia verrucipolaris has spores with warts concentrated at poles (Denison). Scutellinia crucipila has hairs of two types (unbranched and stellately branched) (Denison). Scutellinia erinaceus has orange to yellow color, smooth spores, and short hairs (Denison). The hairs with rootlets are shared by Cheilymenia species, but the spores of Cheilymenia species are smooth and without oil droplets, (Denison). Melastiza chateri is a little larger, with less dense smaller hairs of a different structure, and spores with a conspicuous network; under a hand lens, the hairs of S. scutellata are stiff, brown, and bristle-like, whereas the hairs of M. chateri can be seen as soft, shorter, brown, and matted together, giving a streaky rather than spiny appearance, (McKnight).
