PDD 74394, 74395, CHSC 50088

Fruiting body a plasmodiocarp (or less commonly) a sessile or subsessile sporangium, scattered to loosely clustered; plasmodiocarps broad and flat or narrow and elongated, up to 15 mm long and 0.5–1.5 mm in diameter, often shortened and merging into pulvinate, elongated or ellipsoid sporangia. Stalk, when present, short, thick, dark. Hypothallus membranous, thin, transparent to yellow-brown or dark brown, contiguous for a group of fruiting bodies, often loosely covered with lime scales. Peridium single, subcartilaginous to tough-membranous, dark brown or brownish grey, more or less covered with white or yellowish, usually small, crystalline scales, often so closely aggregated as to form a nearly continuous crust, dehiscence irregular. Columella usually present but highly variable, hemispherical, globose, clavate or forming an elongated ridge, white, cream-coloured to light brown. Capillitium abundant, consisting of dark purple-brown, rather slender, somewhat branched and anastomosing threads, often bearing dark, bead-like thickenings. Spores dark purple-brown to black in mass, purple-brown by transmitted light, rather closely and irregularly warted, globose to broadly elliptical, 10–15 µm in diameter. Plasmodium white, but also reported as dingy white or black.

Reported from widely scattered localities in the mountains of western North America and Europe (Kowalski 1975). First reported from New Zealand by Stagg (1982), based on a specimen collected in Westland. Also known from North Canterbury and Otago Lakes (Stephenson & Johnston 2003).

Living plants, leaf litter and various types of plant debris, usually near melting snowbanks in alpine regions.

Martin & Alexopoulos (1969), Neubert et al. (1995), Ing (1999).

Lepidoderma carestianum is typically plasmodiocarpous, although sporangiate fruiting bodies are sometimes encountered. Some authors (e.g., Martin & Alexopoulos 1969, Ing 1999) have considered the latter to represent a separate species, L. chailletii. The only other species of Lepidoderma that might be confused with L. carestianum is L. granuliferum, but the latter has lime nodes in the capillitium and larger spores.