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Calocera cornea

[ Basidiomycota > Dacrymycetales > Dacrymycetaceae > Calocera ... ]

by Michael Kuo

Look for Calocera cornea after heavy rains on the deadwood of oaks and other hardwoods, where it appears in groups of slick, cylindric fruiting bodies with rounded-off or sharpened tips. This mushroom looks more like a tiny club fungus than a jelly fungus, but its flesh is gelatinous, and microscopic examination reveals the distinctive Y-shaped basidia that characterize members of the Dacrymycetales—a large group within the jelly fungi.

The similar Calocera furcata grows on conifer wood; its spores are septate 3 times, while the spores of Calocera cornea have only one septum. Calocera viscosa is a more robust species (up to 8 cm tall) with orange fruiting bodies that are usually branched two or three times; it grows in clumps, usually on moss-covered, buried conifer wood.

Description:

Ecology: Saprobic; growing scattered to gregariously on the deadwood of hardwoods (especially oaks), usually on sticks up to about 2 inches in diameter; summer and fall; originally described from Germany; widely distributed in Europe, North America, Central America, South America, Asia, and Oceania. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois and North Carolina.

Fruiting Body: Cylindric, with a rounded to sharpened apex; occasionally shallowly forked near the tip; to about 18 mm high and 2 mm thick; surface bald and slick, orange to orangish yellow; apex often shriveling and turning orangish brown with age; flesh firm but gelatinous, yellow; base with a tiny pad of white mycelium.

Odor: Not distinctive.

Spore Print: Whitish.

Microscopic Features: Spores 7–10 x 3–4 µm; allantoid; smooth; 0–1-septate; hyaline in KOH. Basidia and probasidia Y-shaped; 25–40 x 2–4 µm. Clamp connections not found.


REFERENCES: (Batsch, 1783) Fries, 1827. (Saccardo, 1888; Brasfield, 1938; Martin, 1952; McNabb, 1965; Lowy, 1971; Reid, 1974; Phillips, 1981; Breitenbach & Kränzlin, 1986; Metzler & Metzler, 1992; Horn, Kay & Abel, 1993; Barron, 1999; Miller & Miller, 2006; Binion et al., 2008; Shirouzu et al., 2009; Buczacki et al., 2012; Raymundo et al., 2012; Shirouzu et al., 2013; Kuo & Methven, 2014; Desjardin, Wood & Stevens, 2015; Siegel & Schwarz, 2016; Alvarenga & Xavier-Santos, 2017; Baroni, 2017; Elliott & Stephenson, 2018; Læssøe & Petersen, 2019; Zamora & Ekman, 2020; McKnight et al., 2021.) Herb. Kuo 05310704, 07100801, 07172101.


This site contains no information about the edibility or toxicity of mushrooms.


 

Calocera cornea

Calocera cornea

Calocera cornea

Calocera cornea
Spores

Calocera cornea
Immature basidium



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Kuo, M. (2021, August). Calocera cornea. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/calocera_cornea.html