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 Clavulina septocystidiata
BiostatusPresent in region - Indigenous. Endemic
Article: Petersen, R.H. (1988). The clavarioid fungi of New Zealand. New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Bulletin 236: 170 pp. Wellington:.
Description: Fruit bodies up to 7 x 2 cm, branched repeatedly, slender, arbuscular, arising from a tangle of slender white rhizomorphic strands involving significant substrate. Stipe discrete, up to 18 mm long, 1.5-3 min thick, usually flattened somewhat, sterile. Branches in 1-3 ranks, ascending, slender, flattened; axils narrowly rounded; internodes irregular in length and diminishing irregularly; hymenium amphigenous above, often unilateral downward. Apices cristate, acerose, di- to polychotomous. Colour when young very pale pinkish cream ("pale cinnamon pink", "pale pinkish cinnamon") all over, slowly deepening to light pinkish flesh ('light pinkish cinnamon") or pale avellaneous ("vinaceous buff'). Odour and taste negligible.
Hyphae of stem trama up to 12 gm dram., thin- to slightly thick-walled (wall up to 0.3 gm thick), clamped, long-celled, more or less parallel, gnarled to tortuous, hyaline. Branch tramal hyphae of two types: (i) medullary hyphae up to 6 gm dram., equal, straight, parallel; and (ii) cortical hyphae up to 12 gm dram., inflated, somewhat gnarled, constricted at septa. Subhymenial hyphae greatly inflated, short-celled, appearing pseudoparenchymatous, clamped. Hymenium thickening; basidia (Fig. 59) 60-80 x 8-9.5 gm, narrowly clavate to subcylindrical, clamped; contents multiguttulate when mature; sterigmata 2, stout, divergent; post-partal septation common but not universal. Cystidia (Fig. 60) -250 l.m long, arising from subhymenium, 10-14 gm dram., seldom solitary, usually in fascicles of up to 20 individuals, projecting up to 100 p m from hymenial surface, septate, clamped, inflated; apical 1-3 cells refringent with sludgy golden contents.
Spores (Fig. 61) 8.6-10.1 x 6.8-7.5gm (E =1.14-1.33; E'^ = 1.25; L^' = 9.10 um), ellipsoid. to very broadly ellipsoid, hyaline; contents uniguttulate when mature; hilar appendix papillate.
Habitat: Under mixed forest with Nothofagus dominant.
Notes: Corner et al. (1956) description of the micromorphology of Clavulina hispidulosa matches this specimen very closely, and a specimen under this name from India (TENN no. 37644) confirms this similarity. The fasciculate, septate, clamped cystidia are diagnostic, and the fascicles can be seen with a x10 lens as papillose spines. At the same time, however, their description of macromorphology, based (it would appear) on two specimens, does not agree very well with the specimens below. Firstly, fruit body colour was described as "...at first white, then grey to fuliginous", not pallid avellaneous, the colour of the material cited below. Secondly, specimens were described as simple to branched, but the branching pattern was very variable and not much like that of the material cited in "Specimens Examined".
Fruit bodies of the New Zealand material were invariably not only branched, but normally arbuscular, with discrete stipe and several ranks of ascending branches. Corner et al. (1956) did not describe the subhymenium of C. hispidulosa, and TENN no. 37644 does not closely match the pseudoparenchymatous type of tissue shown by the collections cited in "Specimens Examined".
Cystidia are not easily discerned in microscope mounts, but under x120 are seen to protrude in tufts. Apparently, only the refringent apical cell emerges from the hymenium, which raises questions about cystidial ontogeny in the thickening hymenium. Even short cystidia show the refringent apical cell, and I suspect that extension, although caused by apical growth, carries the refringent portion along, for subapical cells are always hyaline.
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