Byssonectria fusispora

What You Should Know

Byssonectria fusispora is a species of apothecial fungus belonging to the family Pyronemataceae. This is a European species appearing as small bright yellow-orange discs thickly clustered on soil and rotting plant material, often at fire sites.

Grows relatively abundantly, in crowded groups on bare ground, on the remains of litter and needles, also on burning sites, and decomposed droppings of forest animals in deciduous and coniferous forests, mainly in spruce. The substrate is usually (not always) heavily soaked with urine droppings.

The genus Byssonectria comprises a group of simple disc-like ascomycetes with small fruitbodies and clavate asci. In many of the species each ascus contains eight ascospores, but there are some related species whose asci produce more than 2000 spores.

Other names: Spindelsporiger Becherling (German), Oranžovka Vřetenovýtrusá (Czech Republic), Oranżówka wrzecionowatozarodnikowa (Poland).

Byssonectria fusispora Mushroom Identification

1. Fruiting Bodies

   The fungus forms a mass of small (3-5 mm) bright yellow or slightly orange sessile or shortly stalked, initially ± globose and closed in structure but becoming urniform and finally shallowly cup-shaped, often densely clustered on a poorly developed pale subiculum that often is only visible within aggregations of fruit-bodies. The outer wall is concolorous, furfuraceous, with small scale-like tufts that are visible, especially on young ascomata. Outer wall tissue is composed of thin-walled textura globulosa-angularis with cells 20-55 µm diam, ± colorless, the medullary tissue containing orange vacuolar bodies that give rise to the overall fruit-body pigmentation. Interascal tissue of unbranched paraphyses, 3-4.5 µm diam, the apex clavate and between 5-8 µm diam, straight, remotely septate and filled with bright orange-red granules.

2. Flesh

   Very brittle, yellowish.

3. Spore Print

   White, cream to yellowish.

4. Season

   March to September.

5. Habitat

   Grows in association with a range of substrates including fire sites, old straw, deer dung, broadleaf woodland litter, and litter of pine woods.

6. Microscopic Features

   Asci 200-230 x 10-13 µm, cylindrical, short-stalked, 8-spored. Ascospores arranged obliquely uniseriately, 23-26 x 7-8 µm (fresh material mounted in water, 21-25 x 7-8.4 µm (dried rehydrated material), fusiform, the ends slightly apiculate, sometimes slightly inaequilateral, hyaline, fairly thick-walled, aseptate, without a gelatinous sheath or appendages.

Byssonectria fusispora Look-Alikes

1. Byssonectria terrestris

   Ddiffers in larger apothecia, up to 5 mm in diameter.

2. Spooneromyces helveticus

   Almost similar, has short brownish hairs, up to 300 µm in length, and reticulate spores.

3. Cheilymenia theleboloides

   Appears in bright yellow to orange-yellow colors, grows in similar habitat, crowded plant, like the spindle-pored aggregate cupling.

4. Cheilymenia granulate

   Looks very similar in size and color, but only occurs on old cow pats. This little cup also grows raspy to crowded.

5. Kotlabea deformis

   This cup has a special way of life. It appears saprophytic from April to June on freshly broken up and reprocessed mostly loamy soils of varying composition, which are colonized by the first pioneer plants. Strong, yellow-walled hairs are located at the base of the cup, which HÄFFNER (1974-1984) calls anchor hyphae or supply hyphae.

Byssonectria fusispora Taxonomy and Etymology

British mycologist Miles Berkeley described this species in 1846 and gave it the scientific name Peziza fusispora. The now-accepted scientific name Byssonectria fusispora dates back to a 1971 article by American mycologists Clark Thomas Rogerson (1918 – 2001) and Richard Paul Korf (1925 – 2016).

The specific epithet fusispora refers to the fusoid (spindle-shaped) spores of these ascomycete mushrooms.

Byssonectria fusispora Synonyms and Varieties

• Humaria aggregata (Berk. & Broome) Sacc. 1889

• Byssonectria aggregata (Berk. & Broome) Rogerson & Korf 1971

• Byssonectria fusispora (Berkeley) Rogerson & Korf (1971), Phytologia, 21(4), p. 202

• Byssonectria terrestris (Alb. & Schwein.) Pfister 1994

• Humaria aggregata (Berk. & Broome) Sacc. 1889

• Humaria buchsii (Henn.) Boudier (1907)

• Humaria carbonigena (Berkeley) Saccardo (1889), Sylloge fungorum omnium hucusque cognitorum, 8, p. 130

• Humaria carbonigena var. fusispora (Berkeley) Massee (1895), British fungus flora, 4, p. 410

• Humaria fusispora (Berk.) Sacc. 1889

• Humaria fusispora (Berkeley) Saccardo (1889), Sylloge fungorum omnium hucusque cognitorum, 8, p. 133

• Humaria fusispora var. scotica Rabenh. ex Stev. 1879

• Humaria roumeguerei (P. Karst.) Sacc. 1889

• Humaria roumeguerei var. carnosissima W. Phillips

• Humarina aggregata (Berk. & Broome) Seaver 1928

• Humarina fusispora (Berk.) Seaver 1928

• Humarina fusispora (Berkeley) Seaver (1928), The North American cup-fungi (operculates), p. 136

• Inermisia aggregata (Berk. & Broome) Svrcek 1969

• Inermisia fusispora (Berkeley) Rifai (1968), Verhandelingen der koninklinje Akademie van Wetenschappen, serie 2, 57(3), p. 198

• Leucoloma fusispora (Berkeley) Rehm (1892), Hedwigia, 31(6), p. 301

• Octospora aggregata (Berk. & Broome) Eckblad 1968

• Octospora carbonigena (Berkeley) Dennis (1960), British Cup Fungi and their Allies, p. 33

• Octospora fusispora (Berkeley) Brummelen (1967), Persoonia, supplement volume 1, p. 213

• Peziza aggregata Berk. & Broome 1866

• Peziza carbonigena Berkeley (1860), in J.D. Hooker, The botany of the Antarctic voyage III, flora Tasmaniae, 2, p. 274

• Peziza carbonigena var. fusispora (Berk.) anon. ined.

• Peziza fusispora Berk. 1846

• Peziza fusispora var. aggregata (Berk. & Broome) W. Phillips 1887

• Peziza fusispora var. scotica Rabenh.

• Peziza roumeguerei P. Karst. 1878

• Peziza roumeguerei var. carnosissima W. Phillips 1887

• Pyrenoma buchsii (Henn.) Svrcek (1981)

Sources:

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