black eyelash camouflaged fungi

diggleken · #1 (**permalink**) 11-01-2009, 04:42 PM

I was looking at this pic , blew it up and realised there are more fungi than I thought!

Besides the yellow bisporella subpallidia, there are, to the left, some cups, possibly with a lash like a scutellania eyelash, but with a short stipe, I think, showing to some of the smaller cups - they are all dark brown/black and camouflaged!
The nearest I can get is ascobolus carbonarius, normally on burnt wood, which this isnt as far as I know.
So any ideas out there please?
Also, theres a purple growth to the left and some black balls to the bottom right - any ideas with those two too? ? ?
The pic is trimmed up a little - the substrate is deciduous, oak I think.
Size is pinhead or less.

Must stop looking too closely.
What a tiny fungi world there is out there!

Cheers
Ken

Lancashire Lad · #2 (**permalink**) 11-01-2009, 05:39 PM

Hi Ken,

Can't get the details as your focus was obviously not centered on them, and probably way wide of the mark, but the "black balls" look quite similar to some pics. I've seen of Lasiosphaeria spermoides.

No ideas whatsoever on the "camouflaged eyelash" like fungi.

Regards
Mike.

mollisia · #3 (**permalink**) 11-01-2009, 05:56 PM

Hi Ken,

the cups on the left are a Mollisia species. No chance to say which one, if it has a name at all. The balls on the right side look like Lasiosphaeria spermoides, but may as well be that they are a Rosselinia species.

I don't see something violet.

best regards,
Andreas

diggleken · #4 (**permalink**) 11-01-2009, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mollisia

Hi Ken,

the cups on the left are a Mollisia species. No chance to say which one, if it has a name at all. The balls on the right side look like Lasiosphaeria spermoides, but may as well be that they are a Rosselinia species.

I don't see something violet.

best regards,
Andreas

Hi Andreas,
well, you should know about mollisia shouldnt you ! ! !
I am intrigued - are there some fungi out there without a name? ? ? So it could be a first?

I will revisit with a stronger eyeglass and try for more detail for both cups and balls if that helps - if so and I can get some more gen I will re-post.
The violet is just very tiny on the left side,just below the mollisia spp - it might be a piece of cotton, who knows - theres no way to tell I think.
The photo was just for records really and is not great I know, but it just goes to show what you can miss with these tiny fungi.
Cheers and thanks everyone for attempting a toughy.

Ken

mollisia · #5 (**permalink**) 11-01-2009, 07:50 PM

Hi Ken,

Quote:

Originally Posted by diggleken

I am intrigued - are there some fungi out there without a name? ? ?

on the world wide scale fungi specialist know nowadays appr. 120,000 species. And they suppose, that these are appr. 10% of the fungi existing. So the estimated number of fungi species lay between 1 and 2 million. So there are still 1,880,000 to find out there

But to be serious: yes, there are a lot of fungi out there which don't have names yet. Either because they are very tiny and no specialists are there working on them. Especially with Hyphomycetes and imperfect fungi is this the case. Either because they are thought to be a variable species until someone detects the differences between them and makes two species out of them. Remember, that in the 50s there was only one Lactarius with orange milk. Today there are at least five species and we are nowadays wondering why they haven't seen the differences earlier .... Remember the many Leccinum species we have today. 100 years ago there were only three or four ....

What concerns Mollisia, there are a lot of unnamed species out there. In former days, the species concept was built on:
- colour of the apothecia
- host
- spore size

Colour of the apothecia is highly dependent on the wheather condition and can only give hints, but never species characters.
Many species were described, just becuase they grew on another host. This is in many cases nonsense. There are some highly specialized species (Mollisia rosae, M. prunicola e.g.), but most of them have a very wide range of hosts.

Todays concept has a lot of other characters:
- reaction of the refractive vacoule body on KOH
- Spore content (how much, what sort of drops?)
- reaction of the ascus tip on Lugol in a water preparation (very important to do exactly like this and no other methode like Melzers or that sort of things!!)
etc. etc.

Almost all of those characters we know today as being significant have not been evaluated by the former authors. Hence it is very difficult to know, what they ha in their hands. I have made a provisional key (it's on my hom,epage, but he english version is not very up-to-date, sorry), were I worked up my hitherto finding. I have ha appr. 75 species which I can identify on their characters. Appr. 45 of them have got a name, 30 of them have working names. From these 30 at least 20 could immediately be described as new species without having fear that they wouldn't be accepted.
But describing a species is much work, when you want to do it properly. And these many many hours sitting there, checking all the literature, comparing, borrowing material from other herbaria and compare it, making a paper, doing the drwaings, working on the revised paper, etc. etc. - all this time is missing in examining living material that you find out there. And for me the relation between theoretical work and practical must have a certain balance. So time for papers is limited and therefore the publishing of new species is quite limited in my case.
And another thing in Mollisia is, that I have the feeling, that the anamorphs may also be a valuable character. So to work properly, it would be recommended that I make cultures from the species and look for anamorphs. And nowadays best is, that you make a DNA analysis also. All these things I cannot do as amateur and need the help of professionals at an university. And it is not usual, that you can bother them with your own porpose - they have their work and projects. That is quite understandable. So I'm very lucky, that I will have a kind of joint venture here at the university and that we will very probably begin a common project on Mollisia. But such constellations are rare ....

And a third cause for new species might be, that new habitats are investigated. H.O. Baral was the first to notice, that dead twigs still attached to the trees cover a special community of ascomycetes fungi, which are very tolerant againt drying (they can be dry up to two or three years (!) and still be alive and produce spores after rehydration). When those twigs fall down on the ground, these xerotolerant fungi vanish within days. Especially the genus Orbilia is very rich in species in this biotop. Zotto and especially Guy Marson travelled through half the worl and looked for those species ón dry bushes in deserts and semi-deserts. So have found in the meantime within appr. 10 years 330 species of Orbilia world wide, of which appr. 250 are new to science ....

Quote:

So it could be a first?

Only after it is published. Firsts of unpublished species do not count

best regards,
Andreas

diggleken · #6 (**permalink**) 12-01-2009, 08:15 AM

Andreas,
that is sooo interesting - I am very grateful for your time to explain!
It really is quite a complicated thing as you say for fungi.
Birds had a similar difficulty,but not as complex to find (in size terms anyway!) - in the old days, new birds were ID'd from skins alone but are checked with photos and catching/ringing and DNA now.
Ken