Is the excipulum brown and thin? The ascus apex reminds me of a Gorgoniceps, though the species I know have much longer spores.

D. atrocyanea has rounded inamyloid ascus apices. Yours look as having a small blue apical ring?
Zotto

right, it has clear amyloid pore,

excipulum from cylindrical thick-walled hyphae (brownish), tightly arranged, and with short free ends at the edge (not hairs).

I have Gorgoniceps aridula in my collection, compared asci - yes, they look quite similar. Though spores really longer, 60-95 mk in G. aridula, - (i will check other species, may be there something will match).

But this photo shows a rathe rhyaline excipulum, unlike typical Durellas or Gorgoniceps. I must say, however, that I saw sometimes hyaline Durella suecica, partly side by side with such with brown excipulum - surely the same species.

Zotto

Checked the excipulum once more, yes, it is rather hyaline, only at base there are adherent dead brown tissues. And my G. aridula has also hyaline excipulum, similar in structure. The apothecia were not submerged in wood, since it is very dense sun exposed wood, probably that may influence the features of excipulum.
Also found that frbs are very bright red in transmitted light, and red pigment saturated even in water in the mount.

I was checking descriptions of Gorgoniceps spp., and found one candidate - could be G. hypothallosa?
There is link to this species in the Raitviir's paper (2008, the Helotiales of the Magadan and Chukotka areas of the Russian Arctic):

"This short spored species of Gorgoniceps [G. arctica sp. nov.] differs from G. hypothallosa, which has spores of the same size, in much paler apothecia, which do not turn red when mounted in KOH. Two other lignicolous species of the genus, G. aridula and G. viridula, have much longer spores and like G. hypothallosa grow on coniferous wood."

Unfortunatelly, the description of G. hypothallosa not available for me right now (Svrcek M.: New or less known Discomycetes. XIII. Ceská Mykol. 38(4): 197 (1984).

Interesting! Here is the paper

Thank you, Zotto!
I've compared these two short-spored Gorgonicepses (G. arctica, G. hypothallosa) with my specimen. Raitviir (2008) says there are only two short-spored wood-inhabiting species of Gorgoniceps. Still my specimen features don't coinside with previous descriptions.

There are major differences:
1) color of live apothecia: G. arctica described as "beige to pale ochraceous"; G. hypothallosa as "pale or dark gray, when dried brown to almost black, + turn red when mounted in KOH"; my specimen red when alive, reddish-brown in exsiccate, scarlet red in transmitted light and relises red pigment in water.
2) structure of excipulum: G. arctica has textura prismatica at base, cells to 12 mk broad, more narrow and clavate at the margin; G. hypothallosa has excipulum from parralel septate hypha 3-5 mk broad, with clavate cells at margin; my specimen textura oblita, from parralel hyphae 3-5 mk, with clavate ends in outer layer and at the margin. E.g. textura prismatica in G. arctica, and textura oblita in others two.
3) presence of subiculum: G. hypothallosa has developed subiculum from brown hyphae, G. arctica has not, neither my specimen. 4) habitat: G. arctica described from decaying stem of Alnus viridis (decidious wood); G. hypothallosa from bark of Picea abies, my specimen from bleached wood of Pinus sylvestris.
The structure of asci, paraphyses, spores seems coincide well in all three.

There are drowings of described species and my specimen, and comparative table. I would appreciate if you give me some instructions (i am only embarking to systematics, so have doubt what next). I had only one collection of this in last summer, and there are limited number of apothecia (about 20 at one wood piece). Probably, it should be observed more when it will summer again.

Dear Nina

I agree with your comparison, but I am not sure if we can lay too much stress on colour. Perhaps there is a difference in the soulbility of the red-brown pigment, but such chemical characters are usually only found out when examining the type. And the colour may totally fade some ten years in the herbarium. Also the subiculum of hypothallosa should be examined - I hope it belongs to the fungus.

What is also important is to look for the croziers at the ascus base (in hypothallosa completely unclear), also  to illustrate the ascus apex including apical ring at high resolution (perhaps always very similar but without an image we do not know).

The oblita is not very clear to me, on your drawing it is not seen (must have gel between the cells). 

Finally, fresh material photographed and/or drawn in the living state would much help, especially concerning the spore droplets, septation of spores (already inside the living asci?), and contents of paraphyses.

Zotto

thank you,

so i will look for another findings of this species to collect more vital information, and probably there will be some oppotunity to work with types in future.

"Textura oblita" i mean as in Ainsworth et al. (The fungi, 1973) (he does not say about the gel):

"..more or les parralel, agglutinated, thick-walled hyphae (textura oblita)"

I though (may be wrong) this term appropriate, since hyphae actually agglutinated and (?) thick-walled. Probably textura porrecta? ("more or less parralel, separable, thin-walled hyphae"). Or, should i read another source for tissue description?

The figure in the Dictionary is not good because it suggests only a thick wall or could even be interpreted as plasma detachment from a thin wall. T. oblita is usually with a gel that cements the cells together. maybe it is also the case in your species. To clarify, a drawing or photo of a closeup is necessary.

Durella has thick-walled cells too, but I am not sure if I would say oblita to this.

Zotto

There are pictures of excipulum, but i decided not to use red Gorgoniceps for tissue training, instead it is of G. aridula (i will post the specimen later). The first mounted in KOH, but it is barely visible, others are in fuchsin, it has stained the cell content.

Yes, for me this is not a t. oblita but a firm- or thick-walled t. porrecta. The stain of the plasma suggests a higher gelification, but that is an optical effect. The stain enhances the plasma but makes the cell wall almost invisible.

Found another, elaborated description of Gorgoniceps hypothallosa, and it has cleared the picture. My specimen well fitted with this description.

There is pages from the paper (Raitviir, A., Huhtinen, S., 2002. A few out of many – interesting inoperculate, lignicolous discomycetes from Norway. Folia Cryptog. Estonica 39, 13–26.):

This is fine, I have this paper, but did not think of it.