Albotricha sp. 'yellow'

Apothecia >1 mm diam., narrow-stipitate, cupulate, densely covered with somewhat matted and tangled hairs, sometimes aggregated into small, tooth-like clumps, pale lemon yellow when fresh, often drying bright yellow, hymenium yellow. Hairs 80-100 x 2.5-3 µm, more or less straight, walls smooth, thin, sparingly septate, undifferentiated to apex. Ectal excipulum of short-cylindric cells, 3-6 µm diam., with walls thickened, hyaline. Paraphyses 2-2.5 µm diam., undifferentiated or tapering slightly to rounded apex, extend about 10 µm beyond asci. Asci 75-85 x 7.5-9 µm, cylindric, taper suddenly to small, truncate apex, wall slightly thickened at apex with J+ pore extending right through, no croziers, 8-spored. Ascospores 26-46 x 2-2.5 µm, filiform, straight, not tapering to rounded ends, 0(-3) septate.

Has been found in both New Zealand and Australia, on dead leaves of a range of indigenous grasses and sedges.

ITS phylogeny places it in a reasonably well supported clade with GenBank accessions identified as Albotricha spp. The smooth walled hairs and thick walled excipular cells are typical of the genus. Based on comments in Hosoya et al. (2010, DOI 10.1007/s10267-009-0023-1) and Raitviir (1970, Synopsis of the Hyaloscyphceae), the New Zealand species is morphologically somewhat divergent from northern species in ascospore size, paraphysis morphology, and hair morphology (spores small and hairs pointed fide Raitviir; lanceolate paraphyses extending well past asci fide Hosoya). The hairs of Albotricha should be ornamented with amorphous lumps near the base, but this ornamentation often lost with mountants such as KOH and Melzers (e.g. Huhtinen, Karstenia 25: 17-20, 1985)