Life on the Outer Coast

Some Spring Fungi

I've encountered a few new to me fungi this last week, one Polyporus and two Ascomycetes.

Polyporus sp. is a fungus I found on a red alder log and later on an Elderberry near the first bridge on the Indian River trail. It is a stipitate Polypore with a darker stem base, at least on older individuals. Some of the population have distinct stipes and caps others in the same population are more funnel or vase-shaped. In either case the pore layer is white. The cap looks like it has soft or fine tomentum, but none is apparent by touch. The upper surface has concentric bands of color (browns, tans) in some individuals, others are fairly uniform. The margins are wavy in older individuals. The odor is pleasantly mushroomy.

The only name I can find that vaguely fits is P. badius (P. picipes), but I'm not sure what all of the options could be. P. badius is a white rot fungus.

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/polyporus_badius.html has a useful description and a useful key http://www.mushroomexpert.com/polypores_stemmed_pale.html

I've edited the following description extracted from mycobank http://www.mycobank.org/MycoTaxo.aspx?Link=T&Rec=456026

Basidiocarps annual, laterally to centrally stipitate, solitary or clustered; pileus circular or flabelliform, up to 15 cm wide; upper surface light chestnut brown to dark blackish brown, often darker in the center, azonate to radially striate, glabrous, smooth or rugose on drying; pore surface white to pale buff, pores circular to angular, 5-8 per mm, tube layer white when young, becoming slightly darker than the context, up to 1 mm thick, decurrent on the stipe; context pale buff, azonate, corky, up to 1.5 cm thick; stipe black and minutely tomentose at the base, chestnut brown and glabrous at the apex, up to 5 cm thick.Hyphal system dimitic; contextual generative hyphae thin-walled, simple-septate, 3-5 µm in diam, inconspicuous in mature specimens, forming a cutis on the pilear surface and a palisade on the stipe surface; contextual skeleto-binding hyphae thick-walled, aseptate, with dendroid branching to narrow tapered tips, 3-5 µm in diam; tramal hyphae similar; gloeoplerous hyphae also present.Basidia clavate with a narrow base, 1-4-sterigmate, 20-30 x 7-9 µm, simple-septate at the base. Basidiospores cylindric, 7.5-9 x 3-3.5 µm. Substrata. Dead wood of numerous hardwood genera such as Acer, Aesculus, Alnus, Betula, Castanea, Fagus, Fraxinus, Populus, Prunus, Robinia, Quercus, Salix, rilia, and Ulmus, also found on Pinus and Picea.Distribution. Temperate species found in Europe, North America and Asia.

Mitrula is a small ascomycete in the Helotiales, Geoglossaceae. Mitrula are also called Bog or Swamp Beacons. It was growing on or around the old leaf bases of Skunk Cabbage in the meadow/muskeg near the Indian River trail. It was found in similar habitat in another muskeg. The genus is found on submerged decaying vegetation in stagnant or slow moving water. Mitrula is considered aero-aquatic, that is the apothecia are above the water. They were solitary or in groups. Inidividuals were up to an inch, maybe 1.5 inches tall.

The fruiting body consists of a clear stem and a cylindrical orange to yellowish orange head. Under the scope they have been less than cooperative in yielding their ascospores. Ascospores are the definitive characteristic needed to distinguish M. elegans from M. borealis. M. elegans has cylindrical spores that lack a gelatinous sheath and M. borealis has elliptical spores. M. borealis is smaller than elegans and has a hyaline stipe as opposed to a white or faintly pinkish stipe in M. elegans.
The spores in the collected fungus seem to be rather narrow, so for now I'm calling this fungus M. elegans.
The photo at the following link shows a more irregular head than those I found, but it is at least a start. http://www.mykoweb.com/CAF/species/Mitrula_elegans.html

An interesting article on the life history and relationships of the species of Mitrula can be found at the following link http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/content/full/92/9/1565
The importance of ascomycetes in decompostion in fresh water was noted in the article, in fact they cited a source reporting 75% of the fungal biomass in underwater systems are Ascomycetes. This fits with the prevalence of the dark septate fungi in the root systems of the muskeg plants. Wonder if we should shift to Ascomycete primers for laccase enzymes?

Vibrissea truncorum or Water Club is a relative of the Bog Beacon. It was growing on submerged or emergent sticks in a small creek. They looked like small orange cups from a distance, but up close had short stalks (less than an inch) and orange cap-like heads. The stalks were light colored with dark hairs. The caps were kind of gelatinous or fleshy looking, but didn't seem particularly sticky.
The spores were very odd, in fact it took a bit of convincing that I was looking at spores at all. Instead of the round or oval spores, these were quite thin and kind of thread-like. Apparently when mature, the spores project out of the ascus and vibrate in te running water. This gives the apothecia a white silky appearance (Mushroooms of Idaho and the PNW, Vol. 1 Discomycetes, by E. Tylutki).
I found a reasonable photo at http://www.treknature.com/gallery/Europe/Czech_Republic/photo107644.htm