Hi Marja,

What about paraphyses? They look more or less cylindrical without an apical glassy / hooked or other protrusion. I dont doubt your KOH-trial, but the reaction of Urceolella to KOH is sometimes less dramatic. Could you redo it with strong stuff? The measurements fit pretty well with Urceolella appressipila, fairly common on Populus tremula in Finland. Also the hairs are a good match. But, and this is a big but, appressipila hairs should dissolve readily in KOH. more or less disappear.

Timo

I know apressipila only from Populus wood, big rotten chunks like Marja has here. Not from leafs or herbs. I recall we compared our collections to Seppo's notes on Graddon's material, (would need to double-check that). --- Whereas salicicola (hirta) is a distinct leaf-species to me. In salicicola the hairs resemble a loose corkscrew where as in apressipila they dont necessarily make a full circle, like in here,kind of a large sickle shape (?). In the field "apressipila" is distinctly hairy but with a recent hair-cut, where as salicicola looks always like a chaotic hair-ball :-)

Also spores size is different (apressipila >7 um long). But, and again but, I have also a collection of "clear U. salicicola" from Salix leafs with spores "6-10 um" long, also I have written "unchanged in KOH(!)". So, maybe there's something more to this still.

T