Cystogloea oelandica : an unusual new auricularioid species from Sweden

Cystogloea oelandica , a new species and genus of auricularioid fungi (Basidiomycota, incertae sedis ), is described from the Swedish island of Oland.


INTRODUCTION
Whilst examining collections brought back from a field trip to the Swedish island of Öland in 2001, an undescribed auricularioid fungus was found with gelatinous basidiomes and unusual, deciduous probasidia arising from disarticulating hyphal compartments.This new species is described in a new genus, as follows: DESCRIPTION OF GENUS AND SPECIES Cystogloea P. Roberts gen.nov.Basidiomata gelatinosa.Hyphae in matrice gelatinosa, moniliformes, disarticulantes, in typo generis efibulatae.Probasidia ex hyphis disarticulatis constata, tenuitunicata.Epibasidia cylindracea, septata.Basidiosporae in typo generis oblongae.
Typus generis: Cystogloea oelandica P. Roberts The new genus is distinguished by producing gelatinous basidiomes in which auricularioid basidia arise from conspicuous probasidia which develop from disarticulated segments of moniliform hyphae.
The collection consists of several dozen, small, erumpent, gelatinous basidiomes which in the field were thought to be a species of Tremella Pers.The basidiomes were growing on an oak twig, most if not all arising from perithecia of Pseudotrichia minor Munk on old stromata of Amphiporthe leiphaemia (Fr.)Butin.Microscopically, all that can be seen in most mounts are loose probasidia in a gelatinous matrix, some of which are giving rise to tubular, auricularioid epibasidia bearing oblong basidiospores.Examination of apparently immature basidiomes eventually revealed branched, rhizoctonia-like chains of swollen hyphal compartments.It appears that these swollen hyphal compartments readily disarticulate and subsequently act as probasidia.
No known auricularioid species appears similar.Deciduous basidia are a feature of the genus Mycogloea L.S. Olive, but in Mycogloea species it is the tubular, epibasidial part of the basidium that is deciduous, the probasidia (produced on normal, narrow hyphae) remaining attached (B a n d o n i 1998).
Large globose to oblong probasidia are found in some species currently assigned to the genus Cystobasidium (Lagerh.)Neuhoff, e.
g. C. proliferans L.S. Olive and the lichen associates C. hypogymniicola Diederich & Ahti and C. usneicola Diederich & Alstrup, but in these species the probasidia are produced on normal hyphae and are not deciduous (O l i v e 1952; D i e d e r i c h 1996).