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 Badhamia melanospora
SynonymsBadhamia gracilis
Badhamia macrocarpa var. gracilis
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 stalked (or rarely sessile) sporangium, gregarious or clustered, globose or ovate, umbilicate below, white or grey. Sporotheca 0.5–0.7 mm in diameter and up to 2 mm tall. Hypothallus membranous, yellow-brown, usually scanty and often inconspicuous. Peridium thin, translucent, pure white, sparsely flecked with white, calcarous nodules. Stalk, when present, delicate, thin, pale straw-yellow or pink, sulcate, more or less twisted, usually short but sometimes as much as twice the height of the sporotheca. Capillium delicate, the tubes of uniform diameter throughout except at the centre, where they may be massed to form a pseudocolumella. Spores free, globose or sometimes angular, dark brown by transmitted light, closely and irregularly warted, usually with clusters of darker warts, and with a coarse network of 1–6 meshes to the hemisphere covering the surface, 12–16 µm in diameter. Plasmodium white.
Habitat: Various types of plant debris, especially that of succulent plants.
Distribution: Widely distributed in arid regions of the world and particularly common in the deserts of North America (Blackwell & Gilbertson 1984), where it is often abundant on dead cacti. First reported from New Zealand by Stephenson (2003), based on a specimen from Auckland.
Notes: Badhamia melanospora is a rather variable species, but fruitings with long-stalked sporangia are not likely to be confused with those of any other species of Badhamia. The reticulate spores are distinctive. The specimen upon which the New Zealand record is based was collected from a decaying frond of nikau palm. This species is listed as B. gracilis in most earlier treatments of the myxomycetes.
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