On trunks. Maungaroa (152).

On dead wood of (1) Agathis australis, Puketi State Forest, June 1948, J. M. Dingley; (2) Cupressus macrocarpa, Oratia, Sept. 1948, D. W. McKenzie; (3) Podocarpus totara, Weraroa, 12 July 1919, G. H. Cunningham (Auricula tatarae ISOTYPE, PDD 225); unknown hosts (4) York Bay, 9 Aug. 1922, G. H. Cunningham; (5) Weraroa, 1 May 1923, G. H. Cunningham & J. C. Neill; (6) Waitakere Ranges, Oct. 1930, M. Hodgkins; (7) unknown locality, 1930, M. Hodgkins; (8) Moumoukai Valley, 14 July 1947, J. M. Dingley

Fructifications gelatinous, translucent, creamy white when fresh, becoming light brown with age, abhymenial surface drying dull black, hymenium mustard. Short stipitate with a dimidiate or petaloid pileus, entire basidiocarp 2-7 cm broad, to 7 cm high. Superior surface sterile, minutely papillate, often wrinkled. Internal hyphae hyaline, thin-walled, to 9 µm diam., clamp connections present. Hymenium inferior, borne on numerous conical spines up to 4 mm long, composed of basidia and dikaryophyses; probasidia subglobose, 11-15.5 x 9-12 µm, becoming 2- or 4-celled by longitudinal septation; sterigmata to7.5 µm long. Basidiospores globose to subglobose, hyaline, smooth, apiculate, 5.5-8.3 µm diam. Germination not observed.

Gymnosperm, rarely angiosperm wood.

Lloyd, Mycol. Notes 14. 147, f. 70. 1903: Coker, J. Elisha Mitchell sci. Soc. 35: pl. 43. pi. 59, f. 4. 1920; Breasdola, Iconographia Mycologica 23: t. 1115, 1116. 1932.

The isotype of Auricula totarae is in all respects typical of Pseudohydnum gelatinosum. Lloyd placed the species with Phlebia reflexa in a new and invalid genus, which he called Auricula, although he commented that they were not related. Lowy (1952, p. 689) examined the holotype and stated that it was an Exidia, but erroneously listed the species under Auricular id.
Pseudohydnum gelatinosum is readily recognisable by the translucent, creamy white fructifications with spines on the inferior surface. The species was recorded from New Zealand as Tremellodon gelatinosus by Cooke (1879, p. 56).

TYPE LOCALITY:
Europe.