Hi,
This was on damp dead wood under Larch – though it may be from another tree source as the mixed woodland is disturbed by a lot of human activity. The sessile ascocarps are up to almost 2mm diameter, rather blue-grey, only the biggest one showing yellowish tinges on the margin. After a week in the incunator there was a lot of radial hyphal growth below the cups. I was unsure whether a dark subiculum was present so I sampled the substrate between the ascocarps and found it to be composed of dark hyphae about 5 mu diameter. The spores were obtained by removing ascocarps and placing them face down on a slide overnight (otherwise the spore deposit was dominated by other ascospores from other species on the wood). They were 8-11 x approx 2.5 (some longer ones looked to have a bent extension presumably germinating hyphae). Most had a very clear septum. The asci had tips bluing in Lugol, inoperculate (?) (some views give a cap-like structure). Asci 60-70 x 5, squashing in clumps with cylindrical paraphyses 2-3 wide. Excipular cells are polygonal and 5-15 across.
I'm aware that Mollisia is a difficult genus and is getting re-sorted. From Ellis and Ellis, which I suppose is now well out-of-date for this group, I got Tapesia fusca as a possiblity, as long as the brown hyphae is a subiculum and not a Hyphomycete – but the spores should be non-septate acc. lit. Niptera has single septate spores so I also got to Niptera raminicola, but it also looks as though some Mollisia also have septate spores. Using the (anonymous?) online Mollisia key at http://www.mollisia.de/Schluessel_englisch.html I got Mollisia lividofusca based on the presumed subiculum – but this species has non-septate spores.
Any help with this difficult but common type of asco would be appreciated,
Steve