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 Physarum albescens
SynonymsLeocarpus fulvus
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 sessile sporangium (or sometimes borne on a weak strand like stalk), gregarious or scattered, obovoid or globose, 0.6–0.8 mm in diameter. Stalk, when present, variable in length, weak, striate, fulvous or yellow, arising as an extension of the hypothallus. Hypothallus usually more or less contiguous for a group of sporangia, venulose, pale yellow. Peridium consisting of two layers, the outer layer calcareous, white to pale yellow or fulvous (but occasionally dark from lack of lime), darker below, the inner layer delicate, membranous, iridescent, the two layers persistent below as a shallow cup, irregularly dehiscent above. Columella absent. Capillitium dense, consisting of large, flattened nodes towards the centre of the sporotheca where they are sometimes massed to form a pseudocolumella, smaller and scanty elsewhere, the nodes dark to yellow, then fading to pallid or white, the ones towards the centre usually more deeply coloured. Spores black in mass, dark violaceous brown by transmitted light, distinctly warted, 12–15 µm in diameter. Plasmodium yellow.
Habitat: Various types of plant debris or (more rarely) living plants, usually near the edges of melting snowbanks in alpine regions.
Distribution: Reported from scattered localities in montane regions of Europe and North America (Martin & Alexopoulos 1969); also known from northern Africa (Ing 1999) and Asia (Yamomoto 1998). First reported from New Zealand by Stagg (1982), based on a specimen collected in Marlborough. Also known from Otago Lakes.
Notes: This species is one member of the distinctive group of "snowbank" myxomycetes associated with melting snowbanks in alpine habitats throughout the Southern Alps (Stephenson & Johnston 2003).
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