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Bisporella citrina [ Ascomycetes > Helotiales > Helotiaceae > Bisporella ... ] by Michael Kuo In "Sailing to Bisporella," W. B. Yeats writes:
In one another's arms, mushrooms on the trees . . . Though this poem has been interpreted in various ways over the years, it is clear to me that Yeats has Bisporella citrina in mind. My optometrist tells me that "at about 40" is when men can expect to start peering over the tops of their glasses to see tiny things (he says that women, in one of the few cases where they get a raw deal in comparison to men, reach this stage in their early thirties). Well, Bisporella citrina is decidedly one of those tiny things requiring an OMHT (Old Man Head Tilt) to bring into focus, if one has crossed my optometrist's lines in the sand. It is a little-known fact that Yeats was an amateur mycologist (his famous line, "Old clothes upon old sticks," is really a description of mature specimens of Coprinus comatus); thus the lines above must refer to Bisporella citrina, which has a maximum cap size of three millimeters. For those young enough to examine the mushroom casually, the defining features are the diminutive size, the bright yellow color, and the habitat in clusters on decaying wood. The mushroom is widely distributed and common but often (obviously) overlooked. I have no information on the edibility of Bisporella citrina, but the most one could do with it from a culinary standpoint would be to use it as sprinkles on ice cream. Go ahead: sprinkle a fungus of unknown edibility on your ice cream, and let me know what happens . . . Description: Ecoogy: Saprobic on the decaying wood of hardwoods and conifers; growing in dense clusters; summer and fall (over winter in warmer areas); widely distributed in North America. Fruiting Body: Cup shaped to disc shaped; the disc up to 3 mm across; with a tiny tapering stem or nearly without a stem; smooth; uniformly bright yellow. Microscopic Features: Spores 9-14 x 3-5 µ; elliptical; with an oil droplet at each end; smooth; often septate. Asci 100-135 x 7-10 µ. REFERENCES: (Batsch: Fries) Korf & Carpenter, 1974. (Phillips, 1991/2005; Lincoff, 1992.) Herb. Kuo 06150302. Helotium citrinum and Calycella citrina are synonyms. Further Online Information: Bisporella citrina at Fungi of Poland |
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Cite this page as: Kuo, M. (2004, February). Bisporella citrina. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/bisporella_citrina.html |