Cheilymenia fimicola
What You Should Know
Cheilymenia fimicola is an inedible species of apothecial fungus belonging to the family Pyronemataceae. The genus Cheilymenia is characterized by small, stipe-less, flattened saucers bearing conspicuous (under a handlens) eyelash hairs and growing on dung, rich soil, plant debris, or other materials. When fresh the fruit bodies are reddish-orange, then they lighten to yellowish-orange in age; the hairs are brownish, and all are unbranched.
This is a common European species appearing throughout the year as orange discs up to 5 mm in diameter, singly or clustered on dung, usually from cows.
Other names: Eyelash Dung Cup.
Cheilymenia fimicola Mushroom Identification
Sporocarp
Apothecia sessile, cylindrical to cushion-shaped, becoming shallowly cupulate to saucer-shaped, 1.0-4.0 (5) mm broad; margin upturned, even to wavy, with pale-tan, bristle-like hairs; hymenium red-orange to yellowish-orange, glabrous, plane to concave; exterior surface lighter than the disc, with scattered, pallid, stiff hairs; context fleshy, thin, orange; odor and taste not investigated.
Spores
Spores 16-19 x 10.0-12.5 µm, ellipsoid, smooth, thin-walled, hyaline, lacking oil droplets; asci eight-spored, uniseriate, the tips inamyloid; paraphysis slender, slightly clavate.
Spore Print
White.
Habitat
Scattered, gregarious, to clustered on dung, primarily cow, but also horse and other herbivores; fruiting year-round when moisture is available; common, but seldom collected.
Cheilymenia fimicola Look-Alikes
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Has blackish hairs around its rim and it grows on rotten timber.
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Has two types of hairs, some straight, tapered, and septate like Cheilymenia fimicola, though usually darker, plus shorter, stellate-branched hairs found mostly at the base of the apothecia.
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Pale-yellowish and has inconspicuous, nearly hyaline hairs.
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The former produces orange cups on dung but lacks marginal hairs, and as the species epithet suggests, has a roughened exterior.
Cheilymenia fimicola Taxonomy and Etymology
Originally described as Arrhenia granulata in 1866 by Italian mycologists Giuseppe De Notaris (1805 - 1877) and Francesco Baglietto (1826 – 1916), in 1978 this species was transferred to the genus Cheilymenia by British mycologist Richard William George Dennis (1910 - 2003).
Synonyms of Cheilymenia fimicola include Lachnea minima Grove, Arrhenia fimicola De Not. & Bagl., Peziza coprinaria Cooke, Lachnea coprinaria (Cooke) Sacc., Cheilymenia coprinaria (Cooke) Boud., and Cheilymenia coprinaria var. minima (Grove) Ramsb.
The specific epithet fimicola means 'living on dung'.
Sources:
Photo 1 - Author: AJC1 from UK (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic)
Photo 2 - Author: AJC1 from UK (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic)