I don`t know if it is help and you are right: there is few information (and Costa Rica is far from Europe) - but I see some similarity of your fungus with Perrotia tricolor.

Surely Zotto will contradict.

Regards from Lothar

Hi Danny

this looks like something interesting for me. Does this collection exist or only the photos?

The paraphyses have a rough surface by some exudate which is known in a few members of Trichopezizoideae, but not from typical species of Trichopeziza. For instance I saw this in a collection of Trichopezizella barbata and in a number of apparently undescribed taxa. Maybe these deserve a genus of their own, and we are presently trying to find out about it by sequencin a number of species.

Your collection could also be compared with the genus Erioscyphella in which a lot of tropical species belong, such as E. abnormis but I don't see a species with such spores. You don't have a photo of the hairs?

Zotto

Hi Lothar

Proliferodiscus tricolor is similar, yes, but has cylindrical non-protruding paraphyses without these deposits on them.

Hello Zotto and Lothar,

I'm afraid these are the only images.  Thank you for your comments and suggestions, despite the lack of more information.

Best,

-Danny

Some notes discovered in my dusty notebook:

Sessile, up to 2mm in diam.

Asci ~115-150µm x 10-15µm, 8-spored, inoperculate, inamyloid. Paraphyses ~175µm x 5µm. Hairs ?µm x 4-5µm, multi-septate.

Spore Measurements:

15-22.5µm x 5-7.5µm (x=19.66µm x 6.6µm, m=20, s=1)

22.5x7.5
21.5x7.5
22.5x7.5
21.5x7.5
21.5x7.5
17.5x7.5
22.5x7.5
20x6.5
18.5x6.5
18.5x6.5
15x5
20x6.5
18.5x5
17.5x5.5
17.5x5
17.5x5.5
20.5x7.5
20x7.5
19x5.5
20.5x7

I'm guessing I did not get hair length measurements because they were enormously long.

Does any of this get us closer to an ID?

My continued thanks,

-Danny

Thanks, so rather large spores. Did you test the asci with Lugol or Melzer? Because there is an ?undescribed species with IKI-red apical rings, surely not your species because of shorter hairs, but with similar spores (18-22 x 4.5-6), nicely mutiguttulate when alive, asci without croziers. On Humuls and Phytolacca so far, from Spain.

If really inamyloid, your fungus indeed comes close to my T. perrotioides, except for the much larger spores. A pity that it is not preserved.

There is another course being offered this year.  I will ask that staff and students keep an eye out for this and try to secure a vouchered specimen.  I would have had one myself, but all my collections were lost by the museum in 2012.

I can't find a reference to T. perrotioides.  Is this a published name?  Is it a Trichopeziza or Trichopezizella?

Also, I believe at least some of the micrographs represent fresh, living material, though I cannot 100% confirm this.

T. perrotioides resembles a Trichopeziza but is genetically distant. It is unpublished, but not infrequent. Growing on almost everything, preferably in mediterranean regions and tolerating drought. Its spores are a bit allantoid, the asci inamyloid and without croziers, and the paraphyses with a warted coat.

If some spores or paraphyses were alive the contents are not very good to see. Good is to have free spores that were forcibly ejected from the living asci, then you have a very constant and taxonomically significant arrangement of guttules.