VICTORIA. Apollo Bay, Great Ocean road, Maits Rest, hypogeal at base of Eucalyptus regnans, 22 Oct. 1981, K. & G. Beaton 27; 17 July 1982, G. Weste, K. & G. Beaton 31.

Gasterocarp 0.5-2.5 cm diam., subglobose, ellipsoid or irregularly turbinate, depressed around the basal attachment, very occasionally with an exposed gleba. Peridium white when fresh, drying greyish orange, farinose to sub-tomentose, smooth finally wrinkled. Gleba white, cream coloured or pale ochraceous, labyrinthoid, of minute, elongated or irregular, empty chambers, 2-4 per mm, with some radial and concentric arrangement. Tramal plates very thin, 75-100 µm thick, consisting of a narrow hymenophoral trama, lacking sphaerocytes, and moderately well developed subhymenial layers. Columella absent or sometimes poorly developed; sterile base minute. Latex and laticiferous elements absent. Spore deposit pale cream coloured. Spores 7-10 x 7-9(9 ± 0^.4 x 8-5 ± 0-3) µm (excl. orn.), Q= 1.05; orthotropic, globose or nearly so, hyaline, thin-walled, with an ornamentation of hollow, tapering spines, with rounded apices, often coalescing at their bases but without connectives, strongly amyloid; hilar appendix short, 1-1.5 x 0.5-1 µm, cylindric or obconical, with a terminal hilar tear. Basidia 25-37 x 9-11 µm, ventricose-clavate, bearing 2 or 4 slender sterigmata. Leptocystidia present, voluminous, 50-80 x 17-35 µm, ovoid-pedicellate to short lageniform with a broadly rounded apex, and few contents. Hymenophoral trama narrow, more or less regular, of parallel, filamentous hyphae, 2.5-6.5 µm diam. Subhymenial layer 11-16 µm broad, pseudoparenchymatous. Peridiopellis a stratified epithelium, up to 200 µm thick, of agglutinated sphaerocytes, 15-40 µm diam. (Fig. 4 D-G, Pl. 25 K-Q).

A small hypogeal species, growing in scattered groups, which was originally described from New Zealand. The amyloid, orthotropic spores place this species in Elasmomycetaceae, whilst the absence of sphaerocytes in the hymenophoral trama, together with the spinose spore ornamentation, and the voluminous leptocystidia indicate Martellia to be the most appropriate genus.

NEW ZEALAND. Auckland, Te Aroha, May 1940, Cunningham 10141 (holotype K).