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 Hymenochaete tasmanica
BiostatusPresent in region - Indigenous. Non endemic
Article: Cunningham, G.H. (1963). The Thelephoraceae of Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Bulletin 145: 359 p. Wellington:.
Description: Hymenophore
resupinate, perennial, stratose, membranous, adherent, at first appearing as
numerous small orbicular or linear colonies 2-10 mm across with free, fulvous,
fibrillose margins, merging to form irregular areas to 10 x 5 cm; hymenial
surface at first reddish-brown, becoming ferruginous or pallid umber, commonly
coarsely and densely tuberculate, sometimes even when slightly velutinate, not
creviced; margin fulvous, or concolorous, adherent, fibrillose. Context
ferruginous, 0.25-4 mm thick, in annual plants composed of one or two rows of
rather scanty setae arising near the hymenial surface, a broad layer of
intertwined usually dendriform hyphae and a narrow, reddish-brown, compact
cortex bearing dense, brief abhymenial hairs; when perennial stratose with 5-16
layers of setae with context hyphae between and parallel lines of darker colour;
generative hyphae 2-2.5 µm diameter, walls 0.5-1 µm thick, golden brown, freely
branched, with many short lateral branches, scantily septate. Setal layers
95-130 µm deep, of 5-16 zones with context tissue between; setae acicular,
apices long-acuminate, some projecting to 70 µm, 70-130 x 8-12 µm, walls naked,
reddish-brown, lumena narrow, expanded towards the bases. Hymenial layer a close
palisade of basidia, paraphyses, and paraphysate hyphae. Basidia subclavate,
14-18 x 4.5-5 µm, bearing 2-4 spores; sterigmata slender, erect, to 5 µm long.
Paraphyses subclavate, 6-12 x 4-4.5 µm. Paraphysate hyphae dendriform,
projecting, brown. Spores suballantoid, apiculate, 4-5.5 x 3-3.5 µm, walls
smooth, hyaline, 0.1 µm thick.
Habitat: HABITAT: Bark or decorticated wood of dead
branches and trunks associated with a pocket rot.
Distribution: DISTRIBUTION: Australia, Tasmania, New
Zealand.
Notes: H. tasmanica may be
identified by the usually coarsely tuberculate, ferruginous hymenial surface,
fulvous margin of young plants, long and narrow, reddish-brown setae usually
arranged in strata, thick-walled narrow hyphae which are freely branched, brown
dendriform paraphysate hyphae, and suballantoid spores. The hymenial surface of
Australian collections is less tuberculate than those from New Zealand, but in
other particulars they are almost identical. Setae are slightly longer in smooth
forms, but show an appreciable range in length in all specimens. Spores are
scantily produced and found only in specimens actively growing at the time of
collecting. Figure 157 was drawn from a young plant showing only two setal
layers; in thick specimens as many as 16 layers may develop to occupy the
greater part of the context.
Massee's description of the type is
faulty in several particulars; for setae are much shorter than he had described
them, and spores are shorter and suballantoid. The type specimen was collected
in Tasmania, as the type sheet shows, not New Zealand as he had recorded. H.
vaginata differs in that setae are of different shape, larger, and usually
enmeshed in hyphal sheaths; hyphae are not dendriform, paraphysate hyphae are
simple, spores longer and of different shape. Both H. tasmanica and
H. vaginata show a general resemblance to H. cinnamomea, since
all three are stratose and composed of branched generative hyphae. They differ
in possessing a deeply coloured cortex of intertwined and cemented hyphae.
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