Hi Malcolm,
shortly I also had G. fallax that bothered me because of its very long-staying unripeness (hyaline color) of the spores. I also was thinking about Hemileucoglossum and others, but finally I found some few asci with dark and partly septate spores, and a section of the typically rough stipe surface clearly showed no setae.
And I am not sure, if the shortness of the unripe spores really excludes fallax - ripe spores often are larger than unripe ones.
Question: how does the stipe of your earth tongue look?
Best regards, Lothar

Lothar
The stem was very G fallax like but also very similar to the photo of Littorale in Arauzo's work. 
The spores which had turned slightly darker were no longer in this case but I will look to see if there are any of fallax length.Thanks
Mal

Björn
I hadn't looked at G elongatum and in many respects that does look good. The description of the shape of the paraphyses varies from one author to the next. They are described as cylindrical (Priou) which would be good but some of the more recent papers such as Hustad have them as contorted which mine weren't but I will have a closer look.
Thanks
Mal

Hello,
In my opinion it's an unripe Geoglossum fallax. Very many, well-developed fruiting bodies of Geoglossum fallax in Flanders (Belgium), especially on sandy soils, have septate (free) spores in a crushing preparation often with maximum 7 septa. The ripening of the spores often stops at 7-septate spores. The average length of the septate spores in my 200 collections goes from 56.8 µm to 85.7 µm. The average length of the aseptate spores in the spore print goes from 52.0 to 90.4 µm. I studied specimens of the holotype of Geoglossum elongatum. The average length of the septate, olive tot olive brown spores (1- to 7-septate) in this specimens goes from 47.8 to 52.2 µm. I see no difference between the paraphyses of both species. Spore sizes for Geoglossum fallax according to Mains (1954) are: (45-) 66-90 (-110) x 5-6 µm, and according to Benkert (1976): (41-) 61-82 (-102) x (5-) 5,4-6,1 (-7) µm. In my opinion it is impossible to separate G. elongatum and G. fallax based on spore sizes and/or septation of the spores.
Kind regards
Luc Lenaerts

Hello Luc,

"In my opinion it is impossible to separate G. elongatum and G. fallax based on spore sizes and/or septation of the spores."

... then do you think both taxa are identical? Because you also write the paraphyses are the same.

Best regards, Lothar

Hello,

I only made a morphological study of the earth tonges of Flanders (publication in preparation). The answer to your question must be given by genetic research.

Kind regards 
Luc Lenaerts

thanks, Luc! Sure: the DNA must speak, as always. But fpr the moment: a species that cannot be separated morphologically is at least not a very good species ....
Best regards, Lothar

I am sending you some tables in which 36 specimens were examined in depth.
Figure 7 shows the distribution of the septation of the spores with increasing average spore length of the septated spores in this 36 specimens.
Figure 8A shows the spore measurements for the same specimens arranged according to increasing average spore length of the septated spores; in Figure 8B the spore measurements of the aseptate spores in the spore prints.
Only the spore sizes of the green colored specimens agree well with the original description of G. fallax. What do we do with the other ones? In my opinion they do not fit the description of G. elongatum.
Kind regards
Luc Lenaerts

Thanks for all this input Luc very informative.
You say fallax and elongatum have the same paraphyses so you don't feel that elongatum has the contorted paraphyses tips mentioned by some authors?
Mal

Hi,
Twisted, distorted and  in different directions intertwined paraphyses are typical for Geoglossum barlae Boud.
Kind regards
Luc Lenaerts

As I have never seen littorale I was unsure of all the distinguishing features. I was told to check the stem for dark setae, as a mark of littorale. There were none found so G fallax with spores shorter than I was expecting.
Thanks for all your help.
Mal