Hallo Andreas

I think you collected the same thing as in spring:

http://www.ascofrance.fr/search_forum/53457#


still a very obscure fungus to me!
Zotto

Hello Zotto,

 

yes, very likely, but this time the asci are mature to overmature and I recognized this splitting of the asci, a thing I never have seen before in any inoperculate fungus. So I hoped it is easier to recognize now ....

The spores become septate with one or ven two septae when overmature, b.t.w.

I have the collection still in fresh state here, if you like I can send it tomorrow.

best regards,

Andreas

Hi Zotto,

may be the collection was in parts yet overmature, but most apothecia looked as if in good condition and there were asci like the one with not yet ruptured apex and there were many spores that seems mature but not overmature. When the spores become overmature and septate the oil drops are gone or nearly so.

The substrate is very likely Acer again, only other possibility is Fagus. But I cut a too thin piece of the branch to verify this now.
It is the same location again as in the spring posting.

this big apical ring, isn't it also similar in Pezicula?

best wishes,
Andreas

It is true that the apical ring is of the Pezicula-type though the blue reaction is untypical for that genus, besides the habitat (Pezicula is an endophyte that mainly grows on recently dead bark. as you surely know).

In the marginal cells you photographed contents which are perhaps remnants of VBs?

Hello Zotto,

I made some more fotos and checked a possible reaction with cresyl blue.

With CB I was astonished as the apothecia show stron metachromatic reactions. I have no experience with that in ascomycetes, but in basidiomycetes metachromatic reactions are often diagnostic important.

Here especially the subicular hyphae reacted very strongly pink in CB. Also the spores are matechromatic. Unfortunately my microscope camera can not show this metachromatic colours. I made some fotos with the smart phone and will upload them later. But the spore foto may give an impression.

Also the cell bodies in the paraphyses were deep blue in CB and good to see. They are present in some cells but not in others.

The asci are clearly without croziers, but that was obviouse already from the first collection.

In one ascus it was clearly to see that there are more than 8 spores - but I'm not sure wether the spores are developing ascoconidia or wether this is just an accident or wether this is a parasite?!
Some spores are already septate within the ascus though they seem to be still immature.

May be this may help a bit further?

Jani prepared a culture of the fungus and hopefully it will grow and she can sequence it.
Three air dried apothecia will go to Marco thines and he hopefully will sequence this portion. If successful, we will surely be somewhat wiser ... ;-)

all the best and thank you,
Andreas

This is good info!

Aqueous Cresyl Blue you should better abbreviate CRB because CB is in use for Cotton Blue in lactic acid. Yes, this is an important reagent, especially spore surfaces are stained in some groups, e.g. in Pezicula.

I suppose that the smaller spores in the asci are an artifact caused by the winter time.

My impression is that the spores are normally ejected when aseptate, and septate submatue spores a result of bad conditions.

I am very curious what culturing and sequencing will bring. Aquatic species have variously been described with curious Ingoldian anamorphs, maybe your fungus is among them.
Zotto

Hi Zotto,

thanks for the hint to CRB and CB, I have to keep that in mind. As I usually write BWB for Baumwollblau I didn't realize that cotton blue and cresyl blue have the same abbreviation ....

What concerns the anamorphs, Christiane Baschien is culturing and sequenzing substrate (leaves and twigs, sterilized and in-situ collected) from the same river plots in which we inverstigate the teleomorphs. So hopefully we can gain a sequence from our teleomorph and it will be likely that we have a match with seomthing from Christianes substrate sequences. Then we at least will know that it HAS an anamorph. And with some luck we even know its identity.

best wishes,
Andreas