Melastiza chateri

Description

Melastiza chateri is a species of apothecial fungus belonging to the family Pyronemataceae. This European species appear all year as smooth, dull orange-red disks up to 15 mm in diameter on damp sandy soil. First described by Worthington George Smith, and given its simplistic Asian name by Jean Louis Emile Boudier in 1907.

Common names: False Eyelash Cup, Red Saucer.

Mushroom Identification

1. Fruit Bodies

   Bright orange to vermilion, cup-shaped, stemless fruitbody with short downy brown hairs on the margin, growth on the ground, and microscopic characters including spores with a coarse network of ornamentation and some with a thorny outgrowth at each end.

2. Upper Surface

   Up to 1.5cm wide, exceptionally larger, cup-shaped then expanding; bright orange to vermilion, (Dennis), 0.5-1.5cm, hemispheric then conic to saucer-shaped, irregularly wavy when mature; bright red-orange to vermilion, margin colored brownish by small tufts of brown hyphae, (Breitenbach)

3. Underside

   Paler than the upper surface dotted toward the margin by minute bunches of downy, brown hairs, (Dennis), colored as an upper surface, (Breitenbach)

4. Microscopic

   Spores 17-19 x 9-11 microns, elliptic but with a coarse raised reticulum that often has a spine-like projection at each end of the spore; asci up to 300 x 15 microns; paraphyses clavate, up to 10 microns wide at the tip, which is filled with orange granules, (Dennis), spores 17-19.5 x 9-10 microns (not including ornamentation), ornaments projecting up to 4 microns, elliptic, "with coarse network of ridges, some also with apical thorny outgrowths, sometimes with small droplets on the spore ends"; asci 8-spored, to 300 x 15 microns, inamyloid; paraphyses "cylindrical, tips with clavate thickenings to 7 microns"; hairs to 200 x 14-16.5 microns, brownish, smooth, with 2-5 septa, more or less cylindric, ending in blunt tip, (Breitenbach)

Synonyms

1. Humaria chateri (W.G. Sm.) Sacc. 1889

2. Peziza chateri W.G. Sm. 1872

Photo sources:

Photo 1 - Author: ahabo (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Photo 2 - Author: merlu (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Photo 3 - Author: merlu (CC BY-NC 4.0)