Melastiza

[Steve]

Here is my fellow fungus-finder on our way to the shops. This one is a fungus in an urban landscape - Aleuria aurantia is always popping up in unexpected places in our bit of Sheffield. This is the first time I've seen it on tarmac.
Steve

[FungiJohn]

This is excellent Steve

Cheers - John

[mollisia]

Hello Steve,

great foto, indeed!
Did you check the Aleuria microscopically, they look quite strange (probably due to the location in the street).

best regards,
Andreas

[Ditiola]

I use an Olympus 7 _ 14 mm I bought it second hand a few years ago. But to buy new now would cost a small fortune. It still performs well at f22 and has very little barrel distortion even at 7mm

Lovely photos. I was surprised to find that my Nikon 28mm lens only stopped down to F16, most disappointing. Out of interest which focal length did you tend to use for the photos you posted?

I forgot to say. My Olympus SLT has a four thirds sensor so the lens is equivolent to 14 _ 28 on a 35 mm camera I prefer to use it as wide as possible. The problem is that the closes that it will focus is 29 cm from the film plane Therefore you have to have a large fungus to use it full wide angle so most of the time it is used at around 20 mm (35 mm) equivalent

[Leif]

Hello Steve,

great foto, indeed!
Did you check the Aleuria microscopically, they look quite strange (probably due to the location in the street).

best regards,
Andreas

I was about to say the same. In my view the shape is wrong, more likely a Melastiza species, or Pulvinula convexella (not uncommon on sandy/stony soil down here) or something else.

[Leif]

I use an Olympus 7 _ 14 mm I bought it second hand a few years ago. But to buy new now would cost a small fortune. It still performs well at f22 and has very little barrel distortion even at 7mm

Lovely photos. I was surprised to find that my Nikon 28mm lens only stopped down to F16, most disappointing. Out of interest which focal length did you tend to use for the photos you posted?

I forgot to say. My Olympus SLT has a four thirds sensor so the lens is equivolent to 14 _ 28 on a 35 mm camera I prefer to use it as wide as possible. The problem is that the closes that it will focus is 29 cm from the film plane Therefore you have to have a large fungus to use it full wide angle so most of the time it is used at around 20 mm (35 mm) equivalent

Thanks Peter. I am thinking about a 20mm lens for a FX/DX camera, the 28mm one being not wide enough. Sounds like it will be fine. 4/3 is tempting, but too pricey to change now.

[Steve]

Hi Andreas,
Yes I did check it out as I hoped it might be Melastiza as it was on a stony substrate but it had some spores with small spikes on the end, so I was pretty sure it was Aleuria aurantia. I was surprised how similar Melastiza cornubiensis (Melastiza chateri) is to Aleuria aurantia microscopically (Fungi of Switzerland). - it's the hairs I need to look for for Melastiza. I may have another look at another specimen, without keeping an eye on my granddaughter at the same time. Although some of these had dark margins I think it was just deterioration of the edge, rather than hairs.
Cheers,
Steve

[Flaxton]

These are definitely Melastiza Steve.
Mal

[Steve]

Hi Mal,
I'm going out tonight with my torch on the way to the beer-off to suss out one with dark margins! I had another look at the slide (dried out) and shoved some methylene blue on it. After all the havoc wreaked by squashing and chemicals, as well as frost, I don't expect the spores will measure too accurately - up to about 20 x 11.
Are these little projections at the spore ends of any significance? I've never found Melastizia chateri so I don't know how the reticulations compare with Aleuria aurantia.
Anyway, here are the spores for what they are worth
Steve

[Ditiola]

Hi Steve

This is the key that I have:

Peter

Key to British species of MELASTIZA
1. Disc white when fresh; hairs white; ascospores shorter than 15.0 µm ..………………… M. rozei
1. Disc orange to red when fresh; hairs brown; ascospores longer than 15.0 µm .………………… 2
2. Ascospores 22.0 - 28.0 x 10.0 - 15.0 µm; spore ornamentation coarse, of large, irregular warts, commonly 3.0 - 5.0 µm across, up to 14.0 µm across at poles ………………… M. contorta
2. Ascospores 15.0 - 21.0 x 7.5 - 10.5 µm; spore ornamentation of a complete or incomplete reticulum, sometimes with warts at the nodes, warts generally smaller than 2.0 µm across, up to 6.5 µm across at poles …………………..……………..………………………………… 3
3. Spore ornamentation of mainly isolated warts, interconnected with narrow ridges forming an incomplete network .…………..... M. flavorubens
3. Spore ornamentation lacking warts, composed of ridges forming a complete network ………………….. M. cornubiensis (= M. chateri)

[Chris Yeates]

Hi Mal,
I'm going out tonight with my torch on the way to the beer-off to suss out one with dark margins! I had another look at the slide (dried out) and shoved some methylene blue on it. After all the havoc wreaked by squashing and chemicals, as well as frost, I don't expect the spores will measure too accurately - up to about 20 x 11.
Are these little projections at the spore ends of any significance? I've never found Melastizia chateri so I don't know how the reticulations compare with Aleuria aurantia.
Anyway, here are the spores for what they are worth
Steve

This is perfect to post on http://www.ascofrance.com/ esp. with such quality images
cheers
Chris

[Flaxton]

The spores are as far as I can see are almost identical. The way these species can be split is by the hairs on the outer rim.
Mal