15-02-2026 04:32
Tomaz Vucko
One more specimen that is giving me some descent a
14-02-2026 22:45
Tomaz Vucko
Hy!I would ask for some help determing this specie
09-02-2026 14:46
Anna KlosGoedemiddag, Op donderdag 5 februari vonden we ti
14-02-2026 19:09
Valencia Lopez Francisco JavierHola colegasEstoi interesado en este articulo, Agn
13-02-2026 18:05
Margot en Geert VullingsOn February 9, 2026, we found these small hairy di
14-02-2026 10:58
Bernard CLESSE
Bonjour à toutes et tous,Pourriez-vous m'aider à
13-02-2026 03:30
Tomaz Vucko
Hello! I found these immersed perithecia on a stic
12-02-2026 21:34
patrice CallardBonjour, la face inférieure des feuilles ce certa
11-02-2026 22:15
William Slosse
Today, February 11, 2026, we found the following R
Hello,I made a loan of a collection of Microstoma from South Korea.
For the beginning, I have used the key to the genus by Tie-Zhi et al. 2018 - it´s in Chinese, so I translated it to English using Google Translator - of course this can have some limits, nevertheless, I led me to M. floccosum.
However, in 2021, another species which could be a good candidate was described from Japan - M. longipilum.
According to Tochigara et al. 2021, the main differences should be the colour of apothecia (scarlet or dull red in M. floccosum, salmon pink to pale orange in M. longipilum) and lenght of hairs (but this is a bit unclear to me: "over 1000 micrometers" in M. floccosum, while "up to 3000 micrometers, usually over 1500 micro" in M. longipilum). Some sources give only "up to 1000 micrometers" for hairs in M. floccosum.
I am attaching photos of dry apothecia - in them, I would say the colour fits better for M. longipilum. Also the aggregared growth would be OK for M. longipilum. Note the brown hyphae at the base of apothecia. A photo of fresh apothecia, taken by the collector, can be found in this presentation, in time 28:40: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmtAD5YM4LA
Hairs are often over 1500 micrometers, the longest hair I measured was 1875 micrometers long.
Ascospores in the South Korean collection were (20.2)21.7-26.5(28) × (10.8)11.6-12.5(13.1) µm, Q = 1.8-2.4, n = 55. Me = 23.9 × 12 µm; Qe = 2 (but this cannot help too much, because size of ascospores is overlapping in the two species). The have no apiculi.
What´s your opinion? There are many photos of M. floccosum in the internet, some also having pinkish colour, but I think it cannot be excluded some are wrongly identified.
Zuzana
About the colour, of course, the density of carotenoid pigments can vary and change the global aspect, including with exsicata.
Maybe the biogeography could also help. M. floccosum was first discovered in North America, so Asian collections should be revised. The phylogeny published in the paper introducing M. longipilum shows clearly that Japanese and Chinese collections named M. floccosum belong to a sister clade of North American collections.
It seems it will not be possible to make a clear conclusion without sequencing.
I should have made this loan three years ago, and wouldn't have problems with identification like now ????
