Created: 2008-06-26 23:09:45

By: Douglas Smith (douglas)

Summary: Looking at PEZIZALES of the Pacific Northwest:

Comment: I was looking at the PEZIZALES key of the Pacific Northwest, because I do that kinda thing I guess, and I came accross this:

Pseudocollema cartilagineum

Apothecia minute (1-2 mm diam.), produced on an obvious mat or layer of whitish hyphae, on pack-rat dung heaps near melting snowbanks (usually montane to subalpine), bright orange in color. A moderately rare fungus, with collections from the Olympic Mountains and Cascade Mountains of WA, and high mountain areas of CA, CO, MT, and Alberta.

Now called Byssonectria cartilagineum (Kanouse et Smith) D. Pfister == Pseudocollema cartilagineum Kanouse & Smith. See 78b.

CUP 0.1 cm, spherical becoming somewhat top-shaped, soft and fleshy, produced on a thick cartilaginous stroma-like base formed over a dung heap (in the case of the type, the stroma 9-15 × 6-10 × 10 cm). HABIT and HABITAT densely gregarious on a thick tightly interwoven white to tan stroma on heap of rodent dung in spring as snow melting. DISTRIBUTION WA, AB, CA, elsewhere. MICROSTRUCTURES spores 20-24 × 8-9.6 um, elliptic, smooth, colorless, 1-seriate; asci 8-spored, 230-250 × 15-17 um; paraphyses slender, slightly enlarged in upper part.