Summary:
Features include minute, pulvinate, gelatinous, dark brown to black, wrinkled fruitbodies, growing on the lichen Mycoblastus fucatus, identified by microscopic characters including long epibasidia and spur-like clamp connections on the basidial base. The dark color results from the presence of greenish-colored host hyphae intermixed with the hyphae of the fungus.
The distribution includes BC, WA, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom, (Diederich),
Fruiting body:
0.02-0.1(0.15)cm across, pulvinate [cushion-shaped], often with a central depression; dark brown to black; strongly gelatinous, drying horny; generally rugose [wrinkled], rarely smooth
Microscopic:
spores 7-11 x 7-9.5 microns, nearly round, with distinct apiculus; 4-spored basidia dominant in North American collections, all 2-spored in European collections, basidia when mature 16-23 x 10-19 microns, subglobose, with 1-3 longitudinal septa, epibasidia 2-4.5 microns wide, reaching more than 100 microns long, subcylindric; hymenium colorless or greenish, containing numerous probasidia, probasidial initials ellipsoid, with a basal clamp connection, clamp connection "often spur-like on the basidial base without being attached to the subtending hypha"; hyphidia and cystidia absent; hyphae of context 1.5-2.5 microns wide, thick-walled, with clamp connections, fertile hyphae 3-6 microns wide, thick-walled, haustorial branches frequent, tremelloid, mother cell 3-4 x 2-3 microns, ellipsoid to subspherical, haustorial filaments 0.5-0.8 microns wide, "growing indefinitely, often branched, sometimes more abundant than context hyphae", anamorph "long irregular conidial chains are sometimes present in the hymenium", in addition, elongate ellipsoid conidia, 4-8 x 2-4 microns, are often observed in the hymenium
|
