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 Badhamia nitens
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 (sometimes with a weak, procumbent, strand like stalk or occasionally plasmodiocarpous), gregarious or closely crowded, globose or depressed globose, 0.5–1.0 mm in diameter. Peridium consisting of two layers, the outer layer yellow or greenish yellow or dull green, somewhat iridescent in forms with scanty lime, the inner layer hyaline, iridescent, tending to be more persistent than the outer layer. Columella absent. Capillitium yellow or dull orange to dingy white, delicate, somewhat thickened at the nodes and then approaching a physaroid condition. Spores in compact clusters of 4–20 (but mostly 6–12), violaceus brown? In transmitted light, coarsely warted on the exposed area, more finely warted elsewhere, pyriform, 12–14 by 11–13 µm in diameter. Plasmodium yellow.
Habitat: Decaying wood and bark.
Distribution: Known from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America (Martin & Alexopoulos 1969, Farr 1976) but not common. First reported from New Zealand by Mitchell (1992), based on specimens appearing in moist chamber cultures on bark of Populus nigra and Hoheria sp. The bark samples were collected in Bay of Plenty and North Canterbury. Also known from Campbell Island.
Notes: No other species of Badhamia is as brightly coloured as B. nitens, and older specimens in which the colour has faded can be recognized by their clustered spores (with only 4–20 spores per cluster).
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