Scutellinia

[flaxton]

This Scutellinia was found on soil in a (usually) boggy area.

The hairs were rooting maximum 750um

The paraphyses swollen but with constricted tips

The spores (courtesy of Lactophenol Cotton Blue and CombineZ) were verrucose 17.5-21 x 12.5-13.5


This seems to point to S subhirtella but I can find no mention of the strange shaped paraphyses.
Thanks
Mal

[nobby c]

Hi there,

Could it be scutellinia scutellata (common eyelash cup) ?
Don.t take it from me I am new to fungi, but it looks like it to me

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by nobby c

Hi there,

Could it be scutellinia scutellata (common eyelash cup) ?
Don.t take it from me I am new to fungi, but it looks like it to me

hi

the problem is there are nearly 30 Scutellinia taxa known to occur in the UK - in most of the popular books you will only find one - Scutellinia scutellata; this is why that species is certainly over-recorded in Britain and other species under-recorded . . . .

dare one ask how many Scutellinia species are in the books you are using?

cheers

Chris

PS hairs no longer than 750 microns immediately rules S. scutellata out for me; you need to do quite a bit of microscope work / staining with this genus, but even that shot of the fungus in the field shows it's not scutellata - hairs clearly too short

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by flaxton

This Scutellinia was found on soil in a (usually) boggy area. . . .
The paraphyses swollen but with constricted tips

This seems to point to S subhirtella but I can find no mention of the strange shaped paraphyses.
Thanks
Mal

hi Mal

what are those paraphyses mounted in?

cheers

Chris

[flaxton]

It was Meltzers Chris.
I mounted again in congo red in case the shape was caused artificial by some internal staining but as you can see



not the best of photos but still shows the unusual shape.

Mal

[nobby c]

Originally Posted by Chris Yeates

hi

the problem is there are nearly 30 Scutellinia taxa known to occur in the UK - in most of the popular books you will only find one - Scutellinia scutellata; this is why that species is certainly over-recorded in Britain and other species under-recorded . . . .

dare one ask how many Scutellinia species are in the books you are using?

cheers

Chris

PS hairs no longer than 750 microns immediately rules S. scutellata out for me; you need to do quite a bit of microscope work / staining with this genus, but even that shot of the fungus in the field shows it's not scutellata - hairs clearly too short

Yep.. spooky ! As you have said ONE..
Funny, it's the only one in any of my five books ....

[fairplay]

Originally Posted by nobby c

Yep.. spooky ! As you have said ONE..
Funny, it's the only one in any of my five books ....

So therefor Nobby, if you saw the fungus above and it 'looked like' all 5 different photos in all your 5 different books, it just HAS to be the Eyelash Fungi, Scutellinia scutellata ......... doesn't it ? NOooooooo !!
And many people have come to the same conclusion as you, using the same sort of method, and continued to send in their records to a national database and bu**er up the whole system.

As Chris say's, there are many other species of Scutellinia out there, some just as brightly red, others less so, and others more orange. Those that are red can differ in the length of the 'eyelashes' or usually tiny cell structures which is sufficient to make them a different species.
This is why a microscope is essential to identify fungi correctly - and with the microscope, you need expensive reference books.

Neil.

PS. But don't let me get you down as I am sure we are all guilty of this (making assumptions) in our early days of recording.

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by fairplay

This is why a microscope is essential to identify fungi correctly - and with the microscope, you need expensive reference books.

Neil.

I think a couple of qualifiers are needed .... "This is why a microscope is essential to identify MANY fungi correctly to species level - and with the microscope, you need expensive reference books."

But getting them to genus is a reasonable feat in itself. And we can do quite a lot to that level without needing a microscope, and with a much smaller number of reference books too.

(Grrr, there are some I can't get to genus even with a microscope )

Melanie

[flaxton]

Here is one in water.


It shows the internal colour and still shows the unusual shape.

Mal

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by flaxton

Here is one in water.


It shows the internal colour and still shows the unusual shape.

Mal

in his monograph on Scutellinia Schumacher (no - not that one) doesn't treat characters of the paraphyses as of taxonomic importance; on his introduction he states:

"Paraphyses are slender, septate, straight and partly branched, in some species with distal branching as a regular feature. They are pyriformly or spherically enxelarged at the tips, reaching a diameter of 8-20 um. The
paraphyses slightly exceed the asci. They contain orxeange brown pigment granules distributed over the full length but more abundantly in the tips, and the pigment granules stain green with iodine (Melzer's reagent) and
blue in sulphuric acid indicating the presence of carotenoid components."

perhaps "pyriform" is what we see here (or has everything gone pear-shaped?)

my only slight caveat against this being S. subhirtella (which I'm beginning to think is possibly the commonest one in Yorkshire) is that a lot of those warts seem to be coalescing and they are supposed to do that rarely in that species . . . . however that is based on looking at a single spore and you'll have been able to see more with the thing in front of you).

Congratulations on a good image of the spore btw - I never seem to get images close to what I actually see down the 'scope - must try stacking again (perhaps using fewer shots); I know that's always true, but yours looks good - did you heat the slide when using CB?

Chris