Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) small, hard, black cups that emerge from dead branches of Populus spp., separately or in clusters, 2) spore-bearing surface black or greenish when moist, 3) absent or very short stem, and 4) microscopic characters. The asci of species of Tympanis are usually filled with many small secondary spores: 8 well-developed ascospores are found extremely rarely, (Breitenbach & Kranzlin).
Tympanis spermatiospora is found from NF to NY, in ID, CO and IA, and also in Europe, (Seaver). It is also found in Finland and Sweden, (Hansen). Collections were examined from BC, ID, MB, NS, ON, PQ, CT, ME, NH, VT, Austria, and Germany, (Groves). A collection was examined also from NF (Ouellette).
Upper surface: 0.05-0.08(0.1)cm across, 0.03-0.05cm high, circular to undulate; spore-bearing surface concave to flat or sometimes convex, black or greenish when moist, more fleshy than the exterior; "at first with a thick, raised margin which later may disappear"; conidial fruiting bodies 0.02-0.04cm across, 0.04-0.1cm high, ovoid to nearly spherical or sometimes conic, containing a more or less ovoid cavity opening at the top, (Groves), reaching 0.1cm across, at first closed and knob-like, opening and gradually expanding to shallow cup-shaped or turbinate [top-shaped]; upper surface brownish black, (Seaver), fruitbody 0.05-0.1cm across, 0.03-0.05cm high, circular to undulate, black, (Hansen)
Flesh: hard, horny, becoming more cartilaginous when moist; conidial fruitbodies similar, (Groves)
Underside: black; bald; conidial fruitbodies also black, bald, (Groves), black (Seaver), bald (Hansen)
Stem: without stem, slightly narrowed in lower part, (Groves), erumpent from substrate, then short stemmed, (Seaver)
Microscopic: primary ascospores 5-8 x 3-4 microns, broadly elliptic to nearly round, colorless, one-celled or two-celled, uniseriate, secondary ascospores 2.0-4.0 x 1.0-1.5 microns, cylindric to allantoid [curved sausage-shaped], colorless, one-celled; asci at first 8-spored, finally multispored, (55)70-90(100) x (9)10-13(15) microns, cylindric, obtuse at top, short-stemmed, at first with walls thickened and gelatinized, becoming thinner when mature; paraphyses 1.5-2.0 microns wide, filiform [thread-like], colorless, septate, simple or branched, "the tips slightly swollen and embedded in a brownish, gelatinous matrix, forming an epithecium"; conidia 2.0-5.0 x 1.0-1.5 microns, cylindric to allantoid, colorless, one-celled, borne at tip and along sides of conidiophore, conidiophores lining the cavity, filiform, colorless, septate, simple or branched, (Groves), spore-like bodies 3-3.5 microns x 1 micron, densely filling asci that reach a length of 75-80 microns and a width of 12 microns, clavate; paraphyses slender, widened in upper part, the ends adhering and forming a brown epithecium, (Seaver), primary spores 5-8 x 3-4 microns, elliptic; asci 70-90 x 10-13 microns, (Hansen), ascospores "broadly ellipsoid-fusoid to subglobose", "becoming one-septate during germination and producing at each end a group of pyriform to subglobose cells", (Ouellette)
Habitat / Range
gregarious, separate, or cespitose in clusters of about 2-8, erumpent; on Populus spp.; conidial fruitbodies "erumpent, gregarious, cespitose in clusters of up to 15, occasionally single", (Groves), single or more often in dense cespitose clusters, on dead branches of Populus, especially Populus tremuloides (quaking aspen), (Seaver), erumpent, separate or cespitose, on Populus or Salix, (Hansen)
