Hi, there is one important character which is not matching with Anthracobia - the spores do not have two oil bodies!  Also, there is no blackening or fuscous colour on the rim or below as most anthracobia spp..


What other options ???   Tricharina spp.

I shall check again for the hairs, but I don't see anything distinct from the macro and from the micro!


Hmm....  any help please ?

Key to genera to Pyromycetes would be lovely!

hello steven,

it reminds me most at cheilymenia. there are some taxa with quite inconspicious hairs. and some terrestric ones. why not on burnt ground? and there could be dung-infiltration even there ...
perhaps you find some more significant hairs?
possible ornamentation would also be interesting. striate?
best

dirk

Thank you Dirk for your reply and comments which are truly noteworthy. It is possible that the burnt debris is secondary and not the true habitat, but much less possible the presence of dung. If it matters, there were remains of animal bones. I can recheck fresh specimens for hairs, but if present, they are short and truly inconspicuous. Chelymenia is rather a good assumption esp. regards the close similarity of the spores. I check for terrestrial species in this genus.

I've just revisted the population with my dSLR camera to take better closeups. I can't see obvious hairs except few occassional ones. One of the rare occassions have been photographed last time, but did not include in the photos since I thought it was insignificant. The microanatomy of the hair appeared to match that shown in photos for some Cheilymenia.

So here are more photos showing the microscopy and the ascocarps

Note 29/Dec A: I have carefully inspected the spores, also mounting in NaOH and staining in Cotton blue, but the spores are smooth or finely course (cloudy). Without stain, sometimes I got the impression that the spore content has a slight hue of green. If all Cheilymidia spp. have distinct striated spores, then it may be another genus.

Note 29/Dec B: Yesterday I have found another population in a different locality. I can confirm now that the habitat is burnt ground and it was sharing the habitat with an Anthracobia (cf nitida) sp. Interestingly, this populations had some individuals with hyaline hairs. These were detected by the naked eye and hand lens. In my opinion, mature specimens lost the hair. I have managed to photograph them - they are over 100um long, usually 1 or 2 septate, one septum when present, about half length of the hair, the other always present at the base below the basal rounded cell.

I wonder why the two specimens I studied, there was a low number of asci... possibly because the ascocarp was young,

Interpretation of the hairs

Stephen, can you confirm the structure of the flesh? Is it homogeneous (1 layer) or bi-layered?

I have cut very thin longitudinal slices along an ascocarp and applied slight pressure on the coverslip. At the end I've squashed some mounts too (see last photo).  I am posting images here.

In my non-expert opinion, the excipulum is one layer (Spherical hyphae) lying below a hymenophore of tubular elements and then the hymenium of asci.

Note that the hymenium (asci + paraphyses) were strongly dextrinoid in IKI


BUT

another interpretation is that there is both ectal and medullary layers, the latter corresponding to the tubular hyphae, and the ectal composed of spherical cells

Hello, and thanks for you help. I am still working on these Cheilymenia. I think I have an important update and correct an assumption I have made. Possibly I came to a conclusion. It's really detetctive work!

I have reported the second Cheilymenia from another site (see Note 29/Dec B above) with burnt ground and assumed that both are the same species. Now I think they are different species, or at least, it cannot be assumed so before checking well. So the hair I depicted from the second population for the moment should not be attributed with the first population to avoid confusion. Let's stick to the first posted population.

I've also reported that this population was also found close to animal bones and other sort of debris. Marginal hairs very rare or caduacous or (absent?). Now I think that this is Cheilomenia cadavarina, reported on necrotic material and peat and superficially have a good similarity.

Look here:
http://www.biodiversidadvirtual.org/hongos/Cheilymenia-cadaverina-(Velen.)-Svr-269-ek-img25066.html

I shall collect, yet another specimen and check immediatelly for the presence of hair on fresh material to compare. Some more photos are found here.

Regards the second Cheilymenia, I will submit a different post