Scutellinia

SheffieldLass · #1 (**permalink**) 12-05-2011, 05:04 PM

But which one?

On unimproved grassland (pasture) in Northumberland, on a rocky headland but on grassland that receives windblown sand from the nearby dunes. The soil was not especially damp.

The hairs weren't especially long, but brownish with some slightly sun-bleached eyelash ends

. The ones I checked varied from 300-850um long, width up to 40um. Thick walled, septate (as show well on the second image).

Spores sub-globose to broadly ellipsoid, (18.0) 18.8-20.5 (21.3) x (13.9) 14.8-16.8 (17.5)um. Qav 1.2 Obviously ornamented. I tried using stacking software on the spores in cotton blue, and there appear to be some broken ridges.

Asci 21-30 x 250-350um. Paraphyses with slightly swollen tips, typically 9-11um.

The spores and asci seem too broad for Scutellinia scutellata, but that is where the key from Brian Spooner leads me to if the spores do have broken interconnecting ridges. I'm thinking probably S umbronum from the spore size, and moderately long hairs. Suggestions please!

BTW AscoFrance has some nice micro photos of some of the Scutellinia species. ASCOfrance

Cheers
Melanie

Chris Yeates · #2 (**permalink**) 12-05-2011, 05:36 PM

hi Melanie

don't think that's S. scutellata . . . I haven't a lot of time at the moment but I've run this through Schumacher's key in his monograph to Scutellinia in Opera Botanica 101 and, with the proviso that you need to have a closer look at spore ornamentation than is (understandably) possible here, I think that Scutellinia umbrorum is a pretty good shout

Schumacher comments under this species: "Notes: The pale and partly flexuous medium-sized hairs and the broad ellipsoid to ovoid ascospores bearing large, rounded tubercles characterize this species. This is the concept of Boudier (1910) and that adopted by Le Gal . . . ."

best

Chris