[Hal Burdsall] Type. Basisiomes gregarious, nearly spherical, 200 – 300 µm diam., white, hirsute/pubescent. Surface hairs 125 – 200 × 9 – 12 µm, walls up to 4 µm thick, hyaline, covered with pale yellow granules, many dissolving or nearly disappearing in KOH, narrow lumen. Subiculum not distinct from the excipulum producing hairs. Subhymenium not differentiated. Basidia arising directly from the subicular tissue. Hyphae 2.5 – 4.0 µm diam, thin-walled, hyaline, smooth, with clamp connections at septa. Hymenium lacking cystidia, composed of basidia, 80 – 100 × 2.5 – 4.0 µm, clavate to utriform, hyaline, thin-walled, 4-sterigmate, sterigmata 18 – 20 µm long. Basidiospores globose to subglobose, 18- 22 x 15 – 18 µm diam, thin-walled, smooth, hyaline, not reacting to Melzer’s reagent.

Receptacles 0.5-1.0 X 0.4-0.8mm, scattered _ to gregarious, subsessile to sessile, white to grey, margin enrolled when dry, structure monomitic, all the hyphae being generative, hymen- ium white to pale cream coloured, smooth; surface hairs densely and finely granule incrusted, originating at any point on the outer surface of the receptacle, thick-walled, with a very narrow lumen, 100-160um long, 5.5-8.5um in diameter below, tapering to a narrow, rounded tip in the outer fourth of their length; basidia clavate, 50-70 X 23-26um, 4-sterigmate, sterigmata incurved, 5.8um in diameter at the base, 4-5um long; spores hyaline, smooth, apiculate, ovate, flattened on one side, pointed at the distal end, 20-23.5 X 14-15um; hyphae of context 3-6um in diameter, subhymenial hyphae with clamp connections, 2.5um in diameter; clamp connections present at the bases of collapsed, mature and immature basidia.

The specimen from the Snares Islands is considered to represent a previously undescribed species because of ithe extremely large size of the spores. L. alboviolascens (Alb. and Schw. ex Fr.) Fr. is represented in Australia and New Zealand but has spores usually 13.5-15 X 9—11um. L. pyriformis (G. H. Gunn.) W. B. Cooke, from 4,000ft on Mt. Egmont, New Zealand, has spores 15-20 X 9-11um; and L. turbinata (G. H. Gunn.) W. B. Cooke, collected on Olearia paniculata at Invercargill, New Zealand, has spores 14—18 X 10-12.5um. The Snares Islands Collection, from Olearia lyallii, has larger spores than either of these species, 20—23.5 X 14—15um, the largest spores of any species of Lachnella yet described. The Snares Islands lie about 150 miles southwest of Invercargill and most of the separation is the water of the Pacific Ocean. A favourable habitat and geographic separation may have been involved in the differences noted between L. turbinata and L. snaresensis” W. B. Cooke.