VIRTUAL MYCOTA: NZ Fungi Identification: Descolea gunnii

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Descolea gunnii

Synonyms

Gymnoglossum gunnii
Descolea squarrosipes
Secotium gunnii

Biostatus

Present in region - Indigenous. Non endemic

Images (click to enlarge)


Caption: Fig. 7. Descolea gunnii. - a. Spores (2000 X ). - b. Cheilocystidia (1000 X ). - c. Cuticle (500 X ).	Caption: Descolea gunnii -Figs 2d	Owner: Herb. PDD	Caption: water colour Owner: G.M. Taylor
Caption: Watercolour Owner: G.M. Taylor	Caption: fruitbody Owner: J.A. Cooper	Owner: J.A. Cooper	Owner: J.A. Cooper
Caption: spores and cap cuticle. Owner: J.A. Cooper	Caption: ZT8558 Owner: E. Horak: © Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 New Zealand	Caption: ZT67-251 Owner: E. Horak: © Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 New Zealand	Caption: ZT9615 Owner: E. Horak: © Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 New Zealand
Owner: J.A. Cooper	Owner: J.A. Cooper	Owner: Herb PDD	Owner: Herb PDD
Owner: J.A. Cooper	Caption: uppre cellular cuticle, lower spores and cheilocystidia. Owner: J.A. Cooper	Caption: Watercolour Owner: G.M. Taylor	Owner: J.A. Cooper
Owner: J.A. Cooper	Caption: Plate 23. Cortinariaceae: 3, Descolea squarrosipes x 4375 5, Descolea squarrosipes x 36000. Detail of wall ornamentation.

Article: Horak, E. (1980). New and remarkable Hymenomycetes from tropical forests in Indonesia (Java) and Australasia. Sydowia 33: 39-63.
Habitat: Habitat. - On soil in forests. - New Zealand (type), Papua New Guinea (under Nothofagus grandis, N. carrii).
Notes: This species is common in New Zealand where it is encountered under various ecologic conditions in coastal and submontane forests. D. gunnii (BERK.) occurs both in Leptospermum spp. and Nothofagus spp. forests and it is suspected to enter at least facultative ectotrophic mycorrhiza with those trees.
Knowing the wide ecologic range and adaptability of this agaric its presence in the Nothofagus forests of Papua New Guinea was no great surprise. That record enlarges the area of distribution from New Zealand to Papua New Guinea.
D. gunnii (BERK.) is closely related to D. recedens (COOKE & MASSEE) SINGER (cf. HORAK 1971 b : 241) until recently only recorded from its type locality in Australia (Mordiallac - now a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria). In 1977 WATLING observed this species in several places in New South Wales and Queensland and it appears now that D. recedens (COOKE & MASSEE) is a well established agaric in the forests of eastern and south-eastern Australia.

Article: Horak, E. (1971). Studies on the genus Descolea. Persoonia 6(2): 231-248.
Description: Pileus 10-45 mm diam., hemispherical when young, later becoming convex or umbonate and expanded; dark (date) brown, sometimes even umber brown but also becoming ochraceous in old fruiting bodies; always striate near the margin, hygrophanous, dry, densely and permanently covered by appressed fibrillose squamules of rusty or dark ochraceous colour. Lamellae (L 10-18, 1 3) adnate or emarginate-adnexed; argillaceous, turning brown, sometimes with whitish serrulate gill edge. Stipe 15-60 X 1.5-7 mm, cylindrical, when old often subclavate, fistulose; dry, apically whitish and farinaceous, below the striate, permanent, submobile ring (sometimes attached near the base) densely covered with squarrose, upwards pointed, ochraceous or golden yellow scales from the velum universale. Context brown, not gelatinous. Smell and taste not distinctive. Spores 9.5-12 X 6-7 µ, sublimoniform, verrucose with smooth mucro, isolated warts embedded in brownish perispore, without particular plage, germ pore absent. Basidia 30-38 X 10 µ, 4-spored, Cheilocystidia 30-60 X 7-13 µ, cylindrical or fusoid, thin-walled, forming a sterile zone at the gill edge. Cuticle consisting of clavate cells, 12-40 X 8-20 µ, forming an epithelium; hyphae thin-walled, strongly encrusted with brown pigment, not gelatinized. Hyphae of the velum universale cylindrical, thin-walled, encrusted, with clamp-connections.
Habitat: HABITAT: on soil or on rotten wood in forests (various species of Nothofagus, Leptospermum, etc.). New Zealand.
Notes: This species occurs frequently in all kinds of forests in New Zealand, probably forming a facultative mycorrhizal association with species of Nothofagus and Leptospermum as well.
Secotium gunnii Berkeley, as the examination of the type specimen showed, undoubtedly belongs to Descolea. The spores observed are characteristic and fragments of the obviously striate ring can still be seen in the poorly preserved collection.

Article: Pegler, D.N.; Young, T.W.K. (1971). Basidiospore morphology in the Agaricales. Beihefte zur Nova Hedwigia 35: 210 p.
Description: Descolea squarrosipes Horak ined. (Pl. 23/3,5)
New Zealand, S. Island, Springs Junction, 5.12.67, Horak 67/208 (type). The spores are amygdaliform and measure 9-11.5 x 5-6.5 µ. Carbon replicas reveal a low reticulate ornamentation covering most of the spore surface, except for the attenuated apex and the base. The hilar structure is of the open-pore type.

Article: Cunningham, G.H. (1924). A critical revision of the Australian and New Zealand species of the genus Secotium. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 49(2): 97-119.
Description: Peridium pallid brown, depressed-globose, base deeply excavated, truncate, 1.5 cm. diam., smooth; drying dingy-brown, rugulose. Stipe short, 1-1.5 cm. long, 2-4 mm. thick, slender, equal, or slightly thickened downwards, solid, pallid-brown; columella expanded at the apex. Gleba ferruginous, cellular, cells minutely polygonal, 1 mm. long, dissepiments thin. Spores minutely verruculose, broadly elliptical, pallid ferruginous, one end bluntly rounded, the other apiculate, 6-8 x 4-5 µ (Massee, 7 x 4 µ), epispore thin. Habitat.-Solitary on the ground.
Notes: The smooth peridium, short, solid stipe and small, rough spores characterise this species. It is separated from the preceding principally on account of the short stipe and the small size of the spores.
In the original description the spores are stated to be smooth, but I find them to be minutely but distinctly verruculose. This character varies somewhat in individual plants, for, of the two plants in my possession, one exhibits more pronounced markings than does the other.
Lloyd (1905) states that he believes this to be a synonym of S. coaretatum; but examination will show that both in glebal and spore characters it is decidedly different.
I am indebted to Mr. Rodway for the donation of two specimens of this species, now in my herbarium, No. 1203. The question may be raised as to whether the material I have examined is that of S. Gunnii, but I am assured by Mr. Rodway that these specimens are from a collection determined by Massee himself.