Didymium (slime mold)

Didymium
Didymium bahiense
Systematics
without rank: Amorphea without rank: Amoebozoa without rank: Myxogastria Order : Physarida Family : Didymiidae Genre : Didymium
Scientific name
Didymium
Schrad. 1797

Didymium is a genus of slime molds ( Myxomycetes ) from the order Physarida . A German name is the term Fellstäublinge .

Type species is Didymium melanospermum .

features

Schematic structure of Didymium melanospermum : stalked sporocarp with columella and fruit part. The star-shaped lime crystals are on the peridia.

The fructifications can be designed as a sporocarp or as a plasmodiocarp . The covering ( peridia ) is thin, membrane-like, rarely cartilaginous. On its surface there are mostly more or less star-shaped lime crystals. These are either loosely distributed or form a cohesive, eggshell-like layer.

The scalp consists of branched or networked fibers. They are usually free of lime and have dark, nodular, funnel-shaped or diamond-shaped thickenings. Sometimes they have spiral strips. A columella , if present, is pronounced as a continuation of the stalk in pediculated fructifications or as a lime-rich thickening of the subsurface in sessile specimens. Pseudocolumella can occur in pedunculated sporocarps. It is plate or cushion-shaped and consists of a calcareous thickening of the basal peridia. This often simulates an extension of the tip of the handle.

The spores are dark brown to black in bulk.

Generic delimitation

The Diderma genus is closely related. It differs only in the amorphous lime of the peridia , while that of didymium has a crystalline structure. Some collections made, however, found in Diderma Kalkausprägungen to those of didymium similar.

Systematics

Didymium leonium is macroscopically and structurally similar to the peridia of the genus Lepidoderma . Therefore the species is sometimesassigned tothe subgenus Lepidodermopsis . The justification of this division is questioned.

species

The genus includes over 70 species worldwide. About 25 species are specified for Central Europe:

• Didymium anellus
• Didymium annulisporum
• Didymium bahiense
• Didymium clavus
• Didymium comatum
• Didymium crustaceum
• Didymium decipiens
• Didymium difforme
• Didymium dubium
• Didymium eximium
• Didymium flexuosum
• Didymium iridis
• Didymium megalosporum
• Didymium melanospermum
• Didymium minus
• Didymium nigripes
• Didymium nivicolum
• Didymium ochroideum
• Didymium ovoideum
• Didymium pertusum
• Didymium serpula
• Didymium squamulosum
• Didymium trachysporum
• Didymium vaccinum
• Didymium verrucosporum

literature

• Hermann Neubert , Wolfgang Nowotny , Karlheinz Baumann , Heidi Marx: The Myxomycetes of Germany and the neighboring Alpine region with special consideration of Austria . tape 2 . Karlheinz Baumann Verlag, Gomaringen 1995, ISBN 3-929822-01-6 , p. 91 .

Web links

Commons : Didymium  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hermann Neubert , Wolfgang Nowotny , Karlheinz Baumann , Heidi Marx: The Myxomycetes of Germany and the neighboring Alpine region with special consideration of Austria . tape 2 . Karlheinz Baumann Verlag, Gomaringen 1995, ISBN 3-929822-01-6 , p. 12 .