Bisporella sulfurina (Quélet) Carpenter
Mycotaxon 1: 59. 1974.

Common Name: none

• Sporocarp

  Apothecia 0.5-1.0 mm broad, sessile, at first urn-like, centrally concave, becoming cushion-shaped to discoid; hymenium glabrous, bright yellow to citrine, slightly translucent; exterior colored like the disc or paler; margin more or less even, lacking hairs; context soft, fleshy, yellowish; odor and taste not investigated.

• Spores

  Spores 8.0-11.0 (13.0) x 2.0-2.5 µm, narrowly ellipsoid to subfusoid, occasionally curved, hyaline, one-septate at maturity, some with droplets; asci eight-spored, uni to biseriate, the tips inamyloid.

• Habitat

  On hardwoods, gregarious to clustered, fruiting in association with a pyrenomycete; seldom collected because of its size, but probably common

• Edibility

  Edibility unknown; insignificant.

• Comments

  Bisporella sulfurina is a tiny, lemon-yellow discomycete unusual in that it fruits in close association with a pyrenomycete. The latter is recognized by a layer of blackish tissue found in close proximity to the brightly colored discs. Bisporella citrina is a common, larger species, not associated with a pyrenomycete. It typically fruits gregariously rather than clustered on bark-free hardwoods. Both species have two-celled ascopores at maturity, but the spores of Bisporella citrina are distinctly broader. A third Bisporella, B. pallescens, forms small, whitish cups on hardwoods, and like Bisporella sulfurina, fruits on the surface of another fungus, a conidial forming taxa called Bispora antennata.

• Other Descriptions and Photos
  • Eduardo Benguria: Bisporella sulfurina (CP)
  • Mien Wijtenburg: Bisporella sulfurina (CP)
  • Breitenbach & Kränzlin (v. 1): sp. 178 (D, I, & CP)

  (D=Description; I=Illustration; P=Photo; CP=Color Photo)