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Chlorosplenium chlora

[ Ascomycota > Helotiales > Dermateaceae > Chlorosplenium ... ]

by Michael Kuo

This tiny cup fungus grows on the well-rotted, barkless wood of hardwoods or conifers in eastern North America. Its colors range from yellow to olive green, and are strongest on the undersurface; the fertile upper surface tends to become pale and nearly whitish as the cups mature. Under the microscope, Chlorosplenium chlora features fairly small, fusiform-ish spores, and filiform paraphyses.

Chlorosplenium hypochlora is identical to the naked eye, but features longer spores. Also compare Chlorosplenium chlora to Chlorociboria aeruginascens, with uniformly greenish blue fruiting bodies, and Chlorencoelia torta and Chlorencoelia versiformis, both of which are somewhat larger and browner.

Description:

Ecology: Saprobic on well-decayed, barkless wood of hardwoods or conifers; growing gregariously to densely gregariously; summer and fall; apparently widely distributed in North America east of the Great Plains. The illustrated and described collection is from Illinois.

Fruiting Body: Cup-shaped at first, becoming flattened or disc-shaped; without a stem; cups 1–3 mm across; upper surface bald, yellow at first, becoming pale yellow to whitish or grayish, and eventually greenish; undersurface bright yellow, finely and sparsely fibrillose when viewed with a lens; flesh yellowish to greenish, unchanging when sliced.

Odor: Not distinctive.

Microscopic Features: Spores 7–9 x 1–2 µm; subfusiform or nearly cylindric; smooth; hyaline and biguttulate in KOH. Asci 45–65 µm long; cylindric; hyaline in KOH; hyaline with a tiny amyloid tip in Melzer's. Paraphyses filiform with subacute or merely rounded apices; 45–65 x 1–2 µm. Medullary excipulum elements green in KOH.


REFERENCES: (Schweinitz, 1822) M. A. Curtis, 1856. (Fries, 1822; Saccardo, 1889; Dixon, 1974; Beug et al., 2014.) Herb. Kuo 09301502.


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Chlorosplenium chlora

Chlorosplenium chlora

Chlorosplenium chlora

Chlorosplenium chlora
Spores

Chlorosplenium chlora
Asci and paraphyses



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Kuo, M. (2016, August). Chlorosplenium chlora. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/chlorosplenium_chlora.html