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Ascocoryne cylichnium

[ Ascomycota > Helotiales > Helotiaceae > Ascocoryne . . . ]

by Michael Kuo

This cup fungus is fond of cool temperatures and well-rotted, wet wood; I find it in fall (and, in California, in winter) on logs that straddle creek beds or washes. To the naked eye it can be virtually inseparable from one of the life cycle stages of Ascocoryne sarcoides (which looks quite different in its other stage), but microscopic differences will then separate the two species handily. Pachyella clypeata is also similar, and grows in similar locations--but that species is usually less purple, and it forms a disc that is attached to the wood all the way to the edges, rather than only in a central location.

Coryne cylichnium is a synonym.

Description:

Ecology: Saprobic on the well-decayed, wet wood of hardwoods or conifers; usually growing gregariously or clustered; fall and winter; widely distributed in North America.

Fruiting Body: 5-22 mm across; disc-shaped to cup-shaped or goblet-shaped; gelatinous; upper surface purple and bald; undersurface similar to upper surface, or paler and finely fuzzy; with or without a poorly defined stem-like structure; odorless.

Microscopic Features: Spores 18-27 x 4-6 µ; smooth; fusiform; multiguttulate; developing several septa with maturity; often with small, subglobose conidia forming, especially at the ends (conidia not coalescing into chains). Asci eight-spored; up to 220 x 15 µ; extreme apices blue in Melzer's reagent. Paraphyses filiform, with subclavate to clavate or subcapitate apices 1-3 µ wide.


REFERENCES: (Tulasne, 1853) Korf, 1971. (Saccardo, 1889; Seaver, 1928 ["Coryne urnalis"]; Dennis, 1968; Breitenbach & Kränzlin, 1984; Phillips, 1991/2005; Barron, 1999; Baral, 2000; McNeil, 2006.) Herb. Kuo 11020402, 01121102, 10201302.


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Ascocoryne cylichnium

Ascocoryne cylichnium

Ascocoryne cylichnium

Ascocoryne cylichnium
Spores

Ascocoryne cylichnium
Asci in Melzer's reagent



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Cite this page as:

Kuo, M. (2013, December). Ascocoryne cylichnium. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/ascocoryne_cylichnium.html.