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21-11-2024 17:21

Malcolm  Greaves Malcolm Greaves

This Geoglossum was found in a wet meadow. 7 sept

04-11-2024 17:32

Yves Antoinette

Bonjour, je pense qu'il peut s'agir de Trichoderma

19-11-2024 15:51

Francois Guay Francois Guay

Hi everyone, I found this Antinoa-like species las

19-11-2024 00:36

Pérez del Amo Carlos Manuel Pérez del Amo Carlos Manuel

Hace unos días encontramos numerosos ejemplares d

19-11-2024 14:48

Watt John

Scoring the characters on Mal's Tombio key actuall

12-11-2024 16:43

Ethan Crenson

Hello all, This weekend a friend found these dark

19-11-2024 08:57

Lothar Krieglsteiner Lothar Krieglsteiner

.. on dead stems of indet.dicotyl, maybe Phytolacc

19-11-2024 20:00

Stephen Martin Stephen Martin

I have found this intriguing fungus which looked l

19-11-2024 14:08

Dragiša Savic

Hello everyone, some interesting anamorphs. The fi

19-11-2024 17:21

Garcia Susana

Hola a todos. Mando este ascomiceto que no consig

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Ascotremella faginea
B Shelbourne, 23-09-2024 20:46
B Shelbourne• Macro and habitat suggest Gelatinodiscaeae.
• With spores suggests Ascotremella faginea.
• Very challenging to section.

Habitat: On damp and decaying angiosperm log, medium size, with bryophytes, in a ditch, damp and shady area, near a large pond, mixed deciduous woodland, Low Weald, England, late-September, after rain.

Apothecia: Diameter < ~ 1 cm (may not be largest), pale lilac to pinkish-brown, paler when immature, broadly turbinate to more irregular-lobate, mostly caespitose, appearing more cerebriform together, superficial, substiptate (very short thick stipe), sometimes overlapping, surface with grainy appearance under low magnification, internally jelly-like, receptacle more whitish and translucent, margin indistinct, slightly out-rolled, disc more purplish, convex, opaque, with dull appearance.

Asci: Cylindrical-clavate, simple septa, rings bb, apex rounded to subtruncate when turgid, rounded-acute when flaccid, biseriate when turgid, uncertain about spore orientation possibly lower spores inversely oriented or irregular orientations, thickening noticeable when flaccid, dome-like when immature, no discharging observed.

Spores: Ellipsoid to limoniform-lacrymiform, often heteropolar, one pole more rounded and the other more acute, acute pole sometimes slightly to distinctly mammiform (incl. within ascus), roughly symmetric in face view but slightly sub-curved or asymmetric in profile view, a medium-size LB at each pole, and many smaller ones, apparently uninucleate and aseptate, ornamentation of faint longitudinal striations, appearing whitish.

Free spores in water: (8.4) 9.2-11.0 (14.2) × 3.5-4.3 (4.7) µm, Q = (2.0) 2.2 - 2.9 (3.5), n = 30, mean = 10.0 × 3.9 µm, Q mean = 2.6.

Paraphyses: Cylindrical, multi-septate, apical cell often longer, apex sometimes irregularly inflated, no branching near the apex observed, oblong hyaline VBs, brownish en masse.

Medullary: Loose texture intricata, narrow hyphae, highly gelatinised, many small crystals and some medium and large ones, near the subhymenium denser and thicker hyphae, with patches of reddish pigment and some pigmented hyphae.

Subhymenium: Difficult to distinguish clear margin from medullary, many globose-pyriform swollen cells of varying sizes.

Ectal: Textura prismatica, marginal cells globose-pyriform.
  • message #80229
  • message #80229
  • message #80229
Hans-Otto Baral, 23-09-2024 20:56
Hans-Otto Baral
Re : Ascotremella faginea
Very good! I have a paper on this and O. pura under work, and could use parts of your docu. Would be good to have an exact date and coordinates.

The spores are longitudinally striate, though not consipcuously.

The species has also a hyphomycetous anamorph, but that was only sporadically discovered.
B Shelbourne, 24-09-2024 00:02
B Shelbourne
Re : Ascotremella faginea
Thank you.

This was found during a local group foray on Sunday (22/09/24) in Sussex, coordinates 50.9100,-0.2684. It was mentioned then that there is some confusion between A. faginea and Neobulgaria pura var. foliacea.


It seems like it should be relatively easy to separate more irregular or overmature forms of N./Ombrophila pura from A. faginea using microscopy.


The spore ornamentation was unexpected and I was concerned that it was artifactual. So I didn't manage to get any good photos, but I've tried to collect together some where you can just make out some striations.

Hans-Otto Baral, 24-09-2024 09:59
Hans-Otto Baral
Re : Ascotremella faginea
Yes, it is quite easy to separate the two species by spore shape and ornament, and by ascus base. The apical ring is also a bit different.

The old issue about var. foliacea has a simple solution: the holotype is a mixture of both, but it is hard to decide for a lectotype. I tend to select A. faginea as lectotype, but I am not really sure what finally to do.
B Shelbourne, 24-09-2024 13:52
B Shelbourne
Re : Ascotremella faginea
I like your suggestion, the protologue of Coryne foliacea has larger spores and asci, and weakly amyloid rings, which seems to be more fitting with the fungus I looked at. Although, O. pura var. folicacea sensu Dennis seems to be more irregular forms of O. pura.
Hans-Otto Baral, 24-09-2024 18:24
Hans-Otto Baral
Re : Ascotremella faginea
Differences in spore size are hard to handle because of variation. Part of my MS says:

Several of the microscopical data in the protologue are not clearly assignable to one of the two species. Ascus size of *100–110 × 8–10 µm obviously refers to living asci based on the sketch on the holotype label in S, but does not allow to exclude one of the two species, although it better fits A. faginea. A more convincing fit to A. faginea is the "in iodine hardly bluing ascus pore". Also ascospore size, shape, and content in the protologue (*7–10 × 4–4.5 µm, ellipsoid, biguttulate) do not permit to exclude one of the two species.

A question is whether American specimens also have simple-septate ascus bases. Gamundí & Dennis's (1969) illustration of a collection from Buenos Aires (Argentina) shows a widened ascus base with two septa which suggest that the asci arose from croziers,but this is not sure.

A paragraph of my paper refers to Dennis 1956 who actually treated under the name foliacea what was A. faginea:

When Dennis (1956) identified three British specimens as Neobulgaria foliacea, he was actually dealing with A. faginea (Gamundí & Dennis 1969). Although he thought that North American A. faginea was very similar to European Coryne foliacea, he preferred to combine the latter in Neobulgaria, because he considered a possible distinctness and correlation with the continent. He distinguished N. foliacea from N. pura by tremelloid, cerebriform, dull reddish-purple vs. turbinate, sometimes confluent, flesh-coloured apothecia, respectively. Also ascus size (†80–100 × 6–8 vs. †60–70 × 8–9 µm) differed between N. foliacea and N. pura, respectively, whereas ascospore size was almost the same (6–10 × 4 vs. 6–9 × 3–4 µm). The strong difference in ascus size noted by Dennis (1956) was not confirmed in the present study of A. faginea and O. pura, though a tendency to longer and narrower asci in A. faginea is recognizable
B Shelbourne, 24-09-2024 21:11
B Shelbourne
Re : Ascotremella faginea
If the American fungi are a different species, and A. faginea is taken then I guess foliacea becomes a candidate for the European species. One option is to synonymise it with whichever fungus has been identified more as O. pura var. foliacea historically.

You are right that some of the earlier work is a little confused, I was referring to Gamundi and Dennis (1969) and Dennis (1971). The gelatinous layer on the surface of the excipulum in Ombrophila is also mentioned that is not present in A. faginea.
Hans-Otto Baral, 24-09-2024 21:32
Hans-Otto Baral
Re : Ascotremella faginea
Yes, the gelatinous layer is a difference too, but easily overlooked.