Apothecia fertility

[chrisjohnson]

Hi Folks

Hope this question isn't going to be too Noddy.

Quite a number of apothecia found (back to black dots on rocks) are incredibly hard: is it reasonable to assume these are infertile? Presumeably they soften when fertile to allow spore release. This must be in the texts somewhere but I haven't found it yet.

Thanks, Chris

PS: I managed to post this on the fungus forum by mistake, so it now appears twice.

[JennyS]

is it reasonable to assume these are infertile?

Not necessarily - I've sliced really hard aps and found spores and softer ones and found nothing.
But my experience is limited so its (yet another) question for AlanS

[chrisjohnson]

Hi Jenny

I'd given up on this one.

I've been experimenting by soaking the apothecia in KOH to soften then a bit, which has work pretty well, and found some nice mature asci in some.

No doubt there is a downside such as desolving crystals I need for identification.

Chris