I think your fungus is Valsaria insitiva - the asci look bitunicate (but probably aren't) and I've seen collections with ornamented ascospores. But I suspect that Nick's fungus is different, his spores are bigger and the configuration of the ascomata looks different.

Hi Paul,

thanks for your suggestion. I believe to know Valsaria insitiva fairly well and can actually exclude it here. In V. insitiva the stromata are different, as is the ascospore ornamentation (not striate).

Nick's fungus indeed is a different fungus to this one so I'm afraid I don't quite understand the connection.

Best wishes,
Gernot

Hi Gernot and Paul,
I agree with Paul this weird fungus has many microscopical traits recalling Valsaria but the circinate arrangement of perithecia apparently lacking stromatic tissues does not fit this genus. Valsaria is peculiar in having cylindrical paraphyses hardly longer than asci and apically free, which does not seem to be the case in Gernot' fungus. Something to check carefully anyway, the hamathecium may be a very discriminant character in some critical cases.
Interestingly I found once  something with very similar asci and ascospores on submerged wood, differing by separate immersed ascomata with a subhyaline wall and a black neck and slightly smaller ascospores. I have absolutely no clue about its taxonomic status either and it seems difficult to go further without molecular support.
Nice find anyway Gernot!
Cheers,
Jacques

Interestingly, Munk illustrated Valsaria insitiva with just such a stromatal arrangement, though he clearly had doubts about the identification as he referred to it as cfr. insitiva. Another job for Hermann and Walter, perhaps...

Hi there,
I do not know the fungus. It is definitely no Valsaria. Actually we did the job on Valsaria already (case closed), as I submitted a paper on Valsaria to Fungal Diversity in the end of January. Let´s see when it comes out. Jacques knows the genus very well, as he as a co-author contributed a lot to this paper.
Cheers, Walter

Thanks to everyone for the interesting input! It seems like a hard task to find a name for this fungus for now but maybe some day a solution will be found.

Best wishes,
Gernot

Hello Gernot,

I forgot to acknowledge that you also know the genus Valsaria. Thanks for your material that we included in our work.

Cheers, Walter