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Paragalactinia succosa agg.

by Michael Kuo, 25 November 2024

Brownish cup fungi are often difficult to identify, but members of this species group distinguish themselves as soon as you handle them; their flesh contains a juice that stains your fingers and the cup's surfaces bright yellow. Under the microscopce Paragalactinia succosa and close relatives feature spores that are ornamented with fairly prominent, isolated warts. Paragalactinia michelii also has yellowing flesh, but its upper surface is purple to lavender (at least, when fresh), rather than brown.

Peziza succosa was described in the 19th Century from Great Britain (Berkeley 1841), and recently combined into Paragalactinia (van Vooren 2020). In Europe, Paragalactinia succosa is putatively separable from the very similar Paragalactinia succosella on the basis of morphological features: succosella has smaller mature fruiting bodies (only up to 2 cm across) and slightly smaller spores that are primarily uniguttulate (containing one drop) during development, rather than biguttulate (Læssøe & Petersen 2019, van Vooren et al. 2022). Two other European species in the group can be separated on spore morphology: Paragalactinia hypoleuca has elongated-ellipsoid spores, and Paragalactinia infuscata has spores with less prominent ornamentation.

However, my North American collections do not adapt well to these European concepts. None of my specimens appear to agree with hypoleuca or infuscata, but they combine succosa and succosella features willy nilly. Tiny mature cups with larger, biguttulate spores, large cups with smaller, uniguttulate spores, and so on. According to Pfister and collaborators (2022) "Paragalactinia succosa and P. succosella represents [sic] a complex awaiting resolution . . . shown in phylogenetic sequence analyses to be highly diverse (data not shown)." Thus the North American members of the group may be as yet unnamed.

Description:

Ecology: Probably mycorrhizal with hardwoods; growing gregariously or in small clusters on bare soil or in moss, often in damp areas and along trails; spring through fall; originally described from Great Britain (Berkeley 1841); widely distributed as a species group in Europe, North America, and South America; also reported from India (Batra & Batra 1963). The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois and Ohio.

Fruiting Body: Cup-shaped when young, remaining so in maturity, or becoming saucer-shaped; 1–4.5 cm across; upper surface beige to grayish brown or yellowish brown, sometimes developing yellow stains in age, bald; undersurface pale brownish (often contrasting with the upper surface when fresh and young), becoming darker with age, sometimes stained yellow to greenish yellow, bald or very finely fuzzy (especially near the point of attachment); without a stem; attached to the substrate at a central location; flesh whitish to brownish or brown, turning slowly yellow on exposure, when squeezed exuding a juice that stains surfaces (and white paper) bright yellow to greenish yellow—or sometimes, in dry conditions or with older cups, not exuding a juice.

Odor: Not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative on all surfaces.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 16–20 x 7.5–11 µm including ornamentation; ellipsoid; at maturity ornamented with isolated warts extending up to 1.5 µm high; mostly biguttulate during development, but also uniguttulate; hyaline to yellowish in KOH. Asci eight-spored; apices, and sometimes the upper sides, amyloid in Melzer's reagent, but usually without a distinct amyloid apical ring (WT, WT+ or, rarely, nearly WTR); without croziers. Paraphyses filiform, with rounded or subclavate apices 3–7 µm wide; smooth; septate; hyaline to brownish in KOH.

REFERENCES: (M. J. Berkeley, 1841) N. van Vooren, 2020. (Seaver, 1928; Dennis, 1968; Smith, Smith & Weber, 1981; Breitenbach & Kränzlin, 1984; Phillips, 1991/2005; Roody, 2003; McNeil, 2006; Kuo & Methven, 2010; Buczacki et al., 2012; Medel et al., 2013; Beug et al., 2014; Kuo & Methven, 2014; Læssøe & Petersen, 2019; van Vooren et al., 2020; van Vooren et al., 2021; Pfister et al., 2022; van Vooren, 2022; van Vooren et al., 2022.) Herb. Kuo 06030403, 10030403, 05280702, 05310701, 06140903, 07300910, 05071101, 06042401, 06102404.

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Spores

Developing spores

Asci in Melzer's

Paraphyses

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Cite this page as:

Kuo, M. (2024, November). Paragalactinia succosa agg. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: December://www.mushroomexpert.com/paragalactinia_succosa.html.