Another species that appears easy to identify from the habitat and macro.

Habitat: On standing dead stems of Urtica dioica from last year, found on the lower part of the stem but not the base, seems more common in shady areas, often where dead stems are touching, collected from a small hilltop woodland of mostly Rosaceae, Prunus cf. avium and Crataegus monogyna, South Downs, England, early April, after rain.

Associates: Very small black spots – possibly Leptosphaeria sp.

Apothecia: Often one hundred or more on a stem, in several loose groups, gregarious to 2-4-caespitose, sometimes overlapping, small, (0.2) 0.4-0.7 (0.9) mm diameter, erumpent but not always clear when mature, initially ellipsoid, receptacle apparently open early, then discoid to cupulate when mature, sessile, bright orange, grainy appearance, firm-gelatinous texture; margin often raised, uneven, brownish, not clearly distinguished from the receptacle; disc lighter, plano-concave.

Storage and methods: Short pieces of host stems stored with some damp moss in a fridge overnight, central sections taken from two mature-looking apothecia, mounted in water, IKI added to water mount, KOH + CR added after IKI. First erumpent apothecia I have examined, not sure if I needed to rehydrate more or it was too cold in the fridge, but hymenium and asci were surprisingly opaque.

Asci: Cylindrical-clavate, croziers, IKI -, apex rounded to acute, relatively small compared to spore size.
Vital: ~70-82 x 8.5-10.5 um, 1-2-seriate, one or sometimes two spores at apex, little to no thickening visible, noticeably protruding from epithecium when mature, pars sporifera ~30-40%.
Dead: ~62-70 x 7-9.5 um wide, significant loss of turgidity in mature asci, more clavate when mature and often irregularly shaped due to relatively large spores protruding, pars sporifera > 40%, 1-2.5-seriate, small lens shaped thickening < ~1 um high, apex more acute-obtuse, more noticeable when immature, in IKI mature spores with red contents including nuclei (possibly more transparent areas).

Spores: Broad-cylindrical to ellipsoid, curved in profile view, uniseptate when mature in ascus, usually heteropolar with the base/basal cell narrower, many small shadowy LBs around each pole, appear to surround the nucleus and then disperse to the edges.
Mature vital spores measured in water mount or IKI in dead mature asci: 15-17.7 x 3.2-4.9 um, Q = 3.3-4.7, n = 9, mean = 16.1 x 4.2 um, Q mean = 3.9.

Conidia?: Smaller, aseptate, ellipsoid-ovoid, found on flanks and in epithecium, once chain of two observed.

Paraphyses: Narrow-filiform, apices rounded, and uninflated to clavate ~1.5-3 um wide, many small LBs, challenging to see in the hymenium and to determine septation.

Exudate: Rose-orange all over; epithecium thick, cloudy, greyish and grainy appearance at high magnification; around margin and flanks more concentrated, clumpy, dark orange-brown, apparently sometimes covering edges of hymenium.

Ectal ex.: Textura globosa, small cells, appears very reduced and mostly around base, base and lower flanks immersed in the substrate and edge appears uneven.

Marginal cells: Hypha-like on flanks, parallel to each other and the surface, multi-septate, protruding parts like paraphyses, not observed protruding above hymenium.

Medullary ex.: Separated from ectal by medium-size band of horizontal hyphae (leading to the marginal cells), textura globosa like ectal ex., appears to represent most of the receptacle.

Subhymenium: Appears very reduced, some swollen cells close to the ascus bases.