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 Didymium dubium
BiostatusPresent in region - Indigenous. Non endemic
Article: Stephenson, S.L. (2003). Myxomycetes of New Zealand. Fungi of New Zealand. Ngā Harore o Aotearoa 3: xiv + 238 p. Hong Kong: Fungal Diversity Press.
Description: Fruiting body a plasmodiocarp, thin, flat, 1–30 mm long and 1–6 mm wide, 0.3–0.5 thick, usually accompanied by small, flat-pulvinate, sporangia. Peridium membranous, firm, colourless, purplish or tawny, more or less covered with a white, often floccose crust of minute, stellate, rod-like or nodular lime crystals, but these may be compacted into a limy crust, sometimes nearly limeless and then dark, or the lime occasionally in the form of scales. Columella usually represented by the thickened base. Capillitium abundant, rigid, the threads brown to pallid, radiating, branching and anastomosing freely from nearly transverse bars, thus forming an elastic net that separates readily from the base and peridium. Spores black in mass, purplish brown by transmitted light, often darker on one side, distinctly and closely warted, 10–15 µm in diameter. Plasmodium grey.
Habitat: Living plants, leaf litter and other types of plant debris; most commonly associated with such substrates near the edges of melting snowbanks in alpine regions but also known to occur in lowland situations.
Distribution: Known from widely scattered localities in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere (Martin & Alexopoulos 1969) and apparently absent or at least very rare in the tropics (Farr 1976). First reported from New Zealand by Stagg (1982), based on a specimen from Westland. Also known from Central Otago
Notes: This species is often relatively common in alpine regions of the Southern Alps, where it fruits on living plants and plant debris near the edges of melting snowbanks (Stephenson & Johnston 2003). The flat, grey plasmodiocarps are often large enough to be easily noticed when they fruit on living plants.
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