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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
‘Earth Tongues’.
Cf. Geoglossaceae?
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing asci and ascospores; erect-elongate, unbranched; capitate (the head more or less flattened, and wrikled or folded, the hymenium brown or yellow); stipitate; small to large; 2–8 cm high; brightly pigmented to not brightly pigmented; cream or yellowish and yellow, or straw-coloured and yellow (the head yellower than the stipe); apothecial; comprising a perithecioid structure enclosing asci and spores (and paraphyses), with no stroma; stromata absent. The asci cylindric-clavate; asci inoperculate; thin walled. The walls of the asci with a small J+ or J- pore. The ascospores elongate (fasciculate in the ascus); smooth; hyaline; multi- septate.
The hyphae without clamp connections. The hyphal walls lamellate, double layered, with both layers electron dense.
Ecology. Saprophytic (in soil). The fruit-bodies borne on the ground. Found in grassy places, in coniferous woodland, in broad-leaved woodland, in mixed woodland.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. Cudonia, Spathularia.
World representation. 10 species; genera 2. Temperate.
Classification. Ascomycota; Ascomycetes; Leotiomycetidae; Helotiales.
Comments. ‘Inoperculate Discomycete’; interascal tissue of narrow, branched paraphyses, which are curved towards the tip.
Illustrations. • Cudonia circinans and Spathularia flavida (LH). CUDONIACEAE. 1, Spathularia flavida. 2, Cudonia circinans. Sunesen & Dahlstrøm, in Lange & Hora (1965). • Spathularia flavida (Berkeley). CUDONIACEAE. 7, Spathularia flavida Pers. NIDULARIACEAE. 1, Cyathus olla (Batsch) Pers. GEASTRACEAE. 2, Sphaerobolus stellatus Tode. ANAMORPHIC FUNGUS. 3, Anthina flammea Fr. HELVELLACEAE. 4, Helvella crispa (Scop.) Fr. (False Morel). MORCHELLACEAE. 5, Morchella esculenta (L.) Pers. (Morel); 6, Verpa digitaliformis Pers. From Berkeley (1860).
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2008 onwards. The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland. Version: 5th August 2019. delta-intkey.com’.
