PDD 68770.

Fruiting body a sessile sporangium, gregarious to densely crowded and then forming a pseudoaethalium, globose to subglobose or angled from pressure, 0.5–1.0 mm in diameter. Hypothallus scanty to profuse, membranous, white or cream-coloured, usually extending beyond the sporangia. Peridium consisting of two layers, the outer layer fragile, smooth, polished, white to cream-coloured or ochraceous (rarely faintly lilaceous), the inner layer remote from the outer one, membranous, dark, slightly iridescent, dehiscence irregular. Columella usually large, hemispherical to globose, white to pale ochraceous. Capillitium abundant, consisting of slender, irregularly branching and sparsely anastomosing, pale brown or purplish filaments, these often bearing irregular expansions towards the base. Spores black in mass, yellowish brown by transmitted light, sometimes paler on one side, 9–10 µm in diameter, sparsely to densely warted. Plasmodium white.

Widely distributed in Asia, Europe, North America, and South America (Martin & Alexopoulos 1969, Ing 1999) but apparently uncommon or absent from the tropics (Farr 1976). Reported from New Zealand by Rawson (1937), based on a specimen collected in Dunedin.

Decaying wood, litter and other types of plant debris; often encrusting living plants

Martin & Alexopoulos (1969), Nannenga-Bremekamp (1991), Ing (1999).

Diderma spumarioides is similar in appearance to D. globosum, but the latter lacks a prominent hypothallus and has darker spores (Farr 1976, Ing 1999).