Image of Stemonitis flavogenita

Description:

Habitat: old partly overgrown pasture, near mixed wood edge, moderately southeast inclined foot of a mountain; open, dry, sunny place; shallow, skeletal, calcareous ground, exposed to direct rain, average precipitations ~ 3.000 mm/year, average temperature 7-9 deg C, elevation 630 m (2.070 feet), alpine phytogeographical region. - Substratum: north side of a stump of Picea abies (on decorticated part) cut down three years ago. - Comment: Highly distinctive traits of Stemonitis flavogenita are typically zig-zag bent columella with a kind of plate at the end just before the end of sporangia (Ref.:1). It is not gradually tapering toward the end of sporocarp as with other species of genus Stemonitis. It is also distinguished by the presence of membranous expansions in the capillitium. Also agreement of macroscopic properties fit well to literature, so I hope the determination is correct. This observation may be interesting since this species is listed neither in Boletus Informaticus data base, Mycotheca and lichen herbarium (LJU-Li) of Slovenian Forestry Institute nor in official Slovenian fungi checklist. - Sporocarp color rusty, oac719; spores on mass chocolate brown, oac635. Stalks 2.5 to 3 mm long, total length of sporangia 9 mm, all of them were fairly the same length, very closely tufted, their tips blunt. The whole clump had 14 mm in diameter. - Spores finely warted, globose. Dimensions: 8,4 [8,8 ; 9] 9,5 x 8,2 [8,6 ; 8,7] 9,1 microns; Q = 1 [1,0] 1,1; N = 32; C = 95%; Me = 8,9 x 8,7 microns; Qe = 1. Olympus CH20, NEA 100x/1.25, magnification 1.000 x, oil (spores), NEA 10x/0.25, magnification 100x (all other pictures); in water. AmScope MA500 digital camera. - Herbarium: Mycotheca and lichen herbarium (LJU-Li) of Slovenian Forestry Institute, Vena pot 2, Ljubljana, Index Herbariorum LJF - Ref.: (1) B. Ing, The Myxomycetes of Britain and Ireland,The Richmond Publ. Co.Ltd, (1999), p 199. (2) S.L.Stephenson and H.Stempen, Myxomycetes, Timber Press Inc.(2000), p 153. (3) http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?search=Stemonitis+flavogenita (4) http://www.myxomycetes.wolf-5.cyberdusk.pl/index.php?wyb=gal&rodzaj=Stemonitis&gat=1&foto=9 (6) http://www.myxomycetes.net/index.php (7) http://myxo.be/pdf/Stemonitis%20flavogenita%20Stemonitopsis%20peritricha%20Intermediaire.pdf (8) https://www.bookiejar.com/Content/Books/7ccbe2a1-12a9-41fa-a3ff-0f8ebaf40ef6/3339_r1/31098/www.gutenberg.org@dirs@3@1@0@9@31098@31098-h@31098-h-7.htm#Page_154 (9) https://www.shitennoji.ac.jp/ibu/images/toshokan/kiyo45-15.pdf