Ascospores (overmature ascospores becomes 4-celled?)

Asci

I think that Zotto will say Orbilia sectio lenta, the species may be Orbilia lenta.
Wiating for the Zotto answer.
JPP

ectoexciple

Hi Eugene

sorry, I overlooked your report. Wonderful! We call this Orbilia lenta. There exist several species with such lens-shaped spores but they are all undescribed except for the 32-spored O. flavida Feltgen. We know O. lenta from sparse records from SE-Europe and N-America (semi-arid areas), NW-Africa, and Central Australia. One from Gobi (Asia) has a bit too short spores. There exist a number of very similar but smaller-spored collections difficult to separate, which we name O. ocellata, and the Gobi collection is intermediate. Apart from Salix we have a lot of desert shrubs as substrate of O. lenta.

Do you have my DVD or how could you describe this fungus so wonderful? Do you have macros also? I suspect you have more Orbilia collections from that region?

I would like to cite your collection in our monograph, could you therefore give me the collection data?

cheers
Zotto

Hi Zotto,

Thanks a lot for your help!
This species was collected in Kuray steppe (Russia, Altay Republic, distr. Kosh-Agach, valley of Tyute river (50,19 deg. N, 87,90 deg. E, alt. 1530 m), in Larix sibirica forest, 6 VIII 2008, coll. E. S. Popov, LE 247245).
I have not your DVD, but I know your recent publications on orbiliaceous fungi from China. I really have some other collections of Orbilia from Altay and other parts of Russia, but many of them are in need of determination or critical revision.

Eugene

Hi Eugene

thanks for the data.
Did you make your microphotos bvery recently? Then you see that the spores survive at least 3 months in the dry state (when dead the lens-shaped SB would disappear). So please do not wait too long with studying your collections. Sometimes the spores are still alive after 1 year, but that depends on the species. Also organelles in the living paraphyses are important.

If you have interest in the DVD, we can try sending it to you. No costs for you.

Zotto

This material was studied just two days ago, and I hope that I would be able to study other collection in the nearest future.
I would be very thankful to you for DVD, if it is possible and not too difficult for you to send it (my postal address is 197376 Russia, St Petersburg, Prof. Popov st. 2, Komarov Botanical Institute, Lab. of geography and systematics of Fungi).

Eugene

I will tell Guy Marson your adress and he will send you. You have a DVD drive as I assume. Do you have Microsoft or Mac? With Mac some had problems to read our DVD.

So you live in your own road? Or the road of your father?

I am very curious on your other collections. If you took these from substrates lying on the moist ground the apos are probably alread dead. But O. lenta is a xerotolerant species as many others,growing on still-attached branches.

Zotto

Thank you!
I will inform you about other altaic Orbiliae. Almost all of them are from xeric microhabitats, including this O. lenta, wich was really growing on attached dry twig.
P.S. The road in not of mine of course, but named after Alexander Popov, one of the inventors of the radio:)

Hi Eugene

I just nored that you wrote that overmature spores become 4-celled. Do you have a photo of that? I saw 2x that overmature spore get 1-septate in O. lenta.

Zotto

A further question: Guy Marson (he burnt and sent you the DVD yesterday) asked me to ask you about what equipment (camera and microsope system) you used for making your microphotos.

thanks
zotto

Hi Zotto
I saw only two 4-celled spores, and I still have some doubt if they were of the same fungus. These spores were a little bit larger than 1-celled and of the same form, but one of them had at basal pole something reminiscent of hilum as if it would be a conidium. Infortunately I have no photo, but it's possible to make a new preparate and to look for.
All microphotos are made with Karl Zeiss AxioImager A1 microscope (DIC, Plan-Neofluar 40/0.7, Plan-Neofluar 100/1.3 OI) and AxioCam MRc5 camera.

Eugene

Another one Orbilia (Orbiliaster) from Altay
Apothecia cupulate, 0,2-0.8 mm diam., pinkish-orange, translucent, with fringe of short white hairs at the margin (fig. a, b). Excipulum of textura angularis/globulosa. Hairs thickwalled, septate, cylindrical or slightly conical, more or less monilioid, ca. 40 x 6-7 mkm, wall up to 1,5-2 mkm thick (c). Asci clavate, 26,5-33(-37) x 3-3,5 mkm, with rounded or truncated apex and long flexuous, sometimes branched stipe, without croziers(?), 8-spored (e). Paraphyses protruding on 5-8 mkm above the asci (d), lanceolate to slightly hastate, up to 36 mkm long, 2 mkm diam., subapically broadened up to 3,2 mkm, with tapered and incrusted apices (f). Ascospores clavate, 6,5-8 x 1-1,4 mkm, curved in middle or in basal part, with apical ellipsoid spore body (g).
On inner bark (often in ruptures of epiderm) and ?on old stromata of an diaporthaceous(?) fungus on dead Salix twigs.

This seems to be close to Orbiliaster paradoxa Huhtinen, but with shorter asci and distinctly lanceolate paraphyses

All my attempts to find again septate spores in O. lenta were unsuccessfull

Hi Eugene

you are right this is clearly Orbiliaster paradoxa. We call this species O. phragmotricha nom. nov. because transfer to Orbilia is blocked by old names (O. paradoxa Ade, O. paradoxa Velen), and the genus Orbiliaster is impossible to keep separate from Orbilia.

You are right with the paraphysis shape: it is usually lanceolate-spathulate in this species. Did you measure the asci towards the very base (including stipe and furca)? Maybe the deviation comes from this. Here is my comment on Huhtinen's taxon in our monograph:

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Based on a single recent Finnish collection, Huhtinen (1992) proposed Orbiliaster paradoxa as a new species. He placed it in the genus Orbiliaster Dennis because of the presence of long and septate hairs with a cyanophilous hair wall coating, and non-inflated paraphyses, similar as in Orbiliaster pilosa. We have not examined the type specimen (TUR 99719) since Huhtinen's detailed description very well concurs with the present concept of O. phragmotricha. Only the paraphyses are described as cylindrical, 2 µm wide (in Huhtinen's drawing a width of 2-2.5 µm can be evaluated) while they are here found to be 2.5-4 µm wide and often distinctly lanceolate to spathulate. Because of the brief and partly incorrect descriptions in Karsten (l.c.) and Nannfeldt (l.c.), Huhtinen overlooked the presence of O. phragmotricha in the Karsten herbarium.
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Usually this species is called Orbilia rubella, but we use that name in a slightly different snese for a species with glassy processes on the septate hairs and larger spores.

If you wish you can send me your fine plate in higher resolution, also the lenta-images.
Zotto
zotto@arcor.de

Guy further asks whether your camera-microscope system is also able to reproduce colours and in what quality?

Zotto

Hi Zotto

Thanks for your comments on my second Orbilia. I'm agree that deviation in the length of asci may be because of broken ascus stipes. Asci, surely measured for whole length, all were longer than 30 mkm.
AxioCam MRc5 camera that I use has 5 Mpix matrix and 36 bit RGB color depth, so it do can reproduce colours. There is also software for this microscop-camera system, wich allow to adjust manually exposition time, white balance, gamma etc.

thanks, Eugene
Zotto