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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
~ Pezizaceae
Anamorphic forms occurring (these hyphomycetous).
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing asci and ascospores; discoid, or cupulate, or cushion-shaped (leathery or somewhat gelatinous, the hypal cells of the excipulum often embedded in a gelatinous matrix, the interascal tissue composed of paraphyses); stipitate to sessile; small to medium sized; in Sarcoscypha coccinea, about 2–6 cm across; gelatinous and somewhat translucent when moist, or not noticeably gelatinous when moist; usually brightly pigmented (within the disc, the paraphyses usually pigmented at their swollen apices); internally orange to yellow, or red (externally dark); apothecial; brightly pigmented with carotenoids (in the paraphyses); stromata absent. The asci cylindrical, persistent. The walls of the asci not staining blue with iodine. The ascospores elongate; smooth, or ornamented; hyaline; simple; multinucleate.
The hyphae without clamp connections. The hyphal walls lamellate, double layered, with both layers electron dense.
Ecology. Saprophytic. The fruit-bodies borne on the ground (then often in rich soil), or on dead wood (S. coccinea common on decayed branches).
Representation in Britain and Ireland. 5 species in Britain; Microstoma, Pithya, Sarcoscypha.
World representation. 21 species; genera 10. Cosmopolitan.
Classification. Ascomycota; Ascomycetes; Pezizomycetidae; Pezizales.
Illustrations. • Sarcoscypha coccinea (LH). SARCOSCYPHACEAE. Sarcoscypha coccinea (from Lange & Hora, 1965).
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’.
