VICTORIA. Powelltown, Pioneer Creek, hypogeal in mixed eucalyptus forest, 16 July 1974, G. Crichton & G. Beaton; Marysville, Cumberland Res., epigeal on thin soil over living root of Eucalyptus regnans, 7 May 1982, comm. Beaton 10. TASMANIA. Rodway 297 (type K).

Gasterocarp 1-3 cm diam., subglobose to pyriform, attached by a tapering base. Peridium bright greyish violet (M.3P/4.4/6.7), discolouring on drying to pale orange, paler towards the base, smooth and viscid. Gleba brownish orange (M.0.5YR/6.5/3.7), drying ferruginous, loculate, with empty chambers, 0.5-1 mm diam., globose to elongate, with a slight radial arrangement. Tramal plates up to 200 µm thick, hyaline, with a narrow hymenophoral trama and moderately developed subhymenial layers; clamp-connexions absent on all hyphae. Sterile base rudimentary; columella sometimes slightly developed.
Spores statismosporic, symmetric, 8.5-10.5 x 6-7(9.5 ± 0.5 x 6.5 ± 0.3) µm (excl. myxosp.), Q = 1.65, obovoid to broadly ellipsoid, golden brown, with a thickened wall bearing a verrucose ornamentation, overlaid by a hyaline, closely applied, membranous myxosporium which fragments and becomes detached. Basidia 28-42 x 6-10 µm, cylindric-clavate, bearing mostly four slender sterigmata, but sometimes also bisporic. Hymenophoral trama regular, hyaline, of strictly parallel hyphae, 2-10 µm diam., scarcely inflated. Subhymenial layer 9-11 µm wide, pseudoparenchymatous. Peridiopellis an ixodermium, 200-400 µm thick, of hyaline, thin-walled, uninflated, reprent to erect hyphae, 2-7 µm diam., embedded in a gelatinous matrix.

Although there is a slight development of both a sterile base and a columella, and gasterocarps may be hypogeal, subepigeal and even epigeal, nevertheless the statismosporic spore structure indicate Hymenogaster to be the most appropriate genus for the species. Cunningham (1944: 72 as Gymnoglossum violaceum) reported the species from Victoria, in addition to South Australia and the type locality. Hymenogaster purpureus Cribb, from Queensland, is very closely related, differing in having uniformly bisporic basidia and a finer ornamentation on the spores. The violaceus pigmentation disappears completely in dried material but the species can be readily separated from other Hymenogaster species by the ixodermial peridiopellis, the absence of clamp-connexions, and the spore characters.