Dictyocephalos attenuatus
Dictyocephalos attenuatus (Peck) Long & Plunkett 1940, , in Long & Plunkett, Mycologia, 32(6), 696-709 (1940).
Diagnosis (In Latin): Sporophore 7 to 56 cm. tall, originating 4 to 20 cm. below the surface of the soil, often with 1-2 white cord-like roots; sporocarp globose to subglobose, depressed, often irregular, 2-6 cm. high by 5-13 cm. broad, seated on the discoid apex of the stipe, basal portion hard, thick, with the narrow margin usually concave beneath; the discoid apex, when freed of gleba light tan to white, convex and coarsely reticulate by the boundary walls of broad shallow pits (Figure 1) ; exoperidium fleshy to gelatinous when young, developing horny to subcartilaginous scales with age which may be small and more or less persistent (Figures 4, 9), or large 4-5 sided pyramidal warts (Figure 2) 1-2 cm. broad by 1-1.5 cm. tall, normally deciduous, leaving a decided scar on the endoperidium (Figure 6); endoperidiutn 1-2 mm. thick, basal portion often coriaceous and persistent, upper part membranous, brittle when dessicated, dehiscing by breaking into irregular pieces which soon fall away leaving the gleba exposed (Figures 3, 10); stipe curved, sometimes straight, 5-52 cm. tall, 2-5 cm. thick at top, 1-4 cm. at bottom, solid (except where hollowed out by insects), terete, or flattened, often deeply sulcate, usually attenuate below, sub fleshy, drying subcoriaceous to woody, context when young, white becoming walnut brown to Vandyke brown with age, 1 outer surface uneven and peeling, often with coarse, spreading or reflexed scales (Figures 6, 8) caused by the outer layers of the stipe cracking both transversely and longitudinally from weathering, base of stipe often pointed and becoming entirely free from the enclosing volva (Figure 7); volva persistent, usually cupulate (Figure 5) to obconic, sometimes tubular, laciniate-incised, 3-11 cm. tall by 4-8 cm. wide at the top, walls .2-4 mm. thick, rupturing from 2-8 cm. below surface of soil, thereby exposing the ascending sporocarp to the dirt for this distance during elongation, walls apparently composed of three layers, inner layer a thin tissue which deliquesces into a blackish fluid just preceding and during elongation, median layer semigelatinous when young, becoming horny with age, outer layer white to tan, hard, chalky in texture; gleba foetid, with odor of decaying fish, pecan brown to mikado brown (after Ridgway). cellular (Figure 10), cell wall white, fragile, membranous, composed of a hyaline amorphous central tissue overlaid by a dense network of branching colorless to fulvous hyphae, easily fragmenting and falling away in laciniate irregular flakes and shreds, cell walls in bottom of the gleba thicker, firmer and more permanent, often persisting as broad, flattened, pointed teeth on the exposed convex surface of the global floor long after the glebal has disappeared; capillitium, free capillitium absent, but the hyphae composing the outer layers of the gleball cell walls may break loose and simulate capillitial threads; spores globose to subglobose, 5-7 µm, walls thin, fulvous, verrucose; basidia clustered bearing 1-4 spores on short sterigmata.
Index Fungorum Number: IF286084
Figure 1. The white reticulate-pitted upper surface of the discoid apex of the stem. California plant, 1936 crop, X 9/10., 2. large pyramidal warts of exoperidium. California plant, 1938 crop, X 5/8., 3. sporophore with naked cellular gleba and coarse annulus, New Mexico plant, X 2/5., 4. coarse veil and the small scales of the exoperidium, New Mexico plant, X 3/7., 5. plant with radicating base, cupulate volva and brown flakes of exoperidium on the whitish endoperidium, California plant, 1939 crop, X 3/8. (Long & Plunkett, 1940).
Figure 6. Scars on endoperidium where the warts of exoperidium peeled off, also shows the rough scales on stipe. California plant, 1937 crop, X 1/3., 7. a slender very attenuate plant with a pointed stipe free from the obconic volva. California plant, 1935 crop, X 1/3., 8. a curved sporophore with a scaly stipe and knob at base where volva was attached. California plant, 1937 crop, X 1/3., 9. longisection view showing the overhanging margin of the pileus and the small scales of the exoperidium. New Mexico plant (reverse side of figure 4), X 3/7., 10. gleba showing the permanent cells with membranous walls. New Mexico plant, X 1. (Long & Plunkett, 1940).
Reference:
Long, W.H., & Plunkett, O.A. (1940). Studies in the Gasteromycetes. I. The genus Dictyocephalos. Mycologia, 32(6), 696-709.
Recent Genus
EchinodontiellumDuportella
Donkioporia
Recent Species
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Oliveonia fibrillosa