Lion fruit
| Lion fruit | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Lionfruit ( Leocarpus fragilis ) |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Leocarpus fragilis | ||||||||||||
| ( Dicks. ) Rostaf. |
The lion fruit ( Leocarpus fragilis ) is a slime mold from the family Physaridae .
features
Macroscopic properties
The fruiting bodies grow gregarious to densely packed in groups of numerous individual fructifications. They can also grow sporadically at the edges of such collections. They sit on a contracted base or have peduncles. The fruit capsules are squat to oblong ovoid or club-shaped. There are also cylindrical shapes with a rounded apex and a conical base. Sometimes they are dented on the side. The fruit bodies are two to three, sometimes four millimeters high and 0.6 to 1.5 millimeters wide. They have a yellow-brown to dark red-brown color and a glossy surface.
The stem is slack and has a wrinkled, wrinkled, often flattened shape. It is milky white to lightly colored. Sometimes several stems are skinned together. Mostly they lie down and are two, sometimes three millimeters in length. Sometimes the fruiting bodies are erect, with the stalk being reduced in wrinkles. The base ( hypothallus ) is membranous to stringy and is located under the entire group of fruiting bodies. It is hyaline , milky white to pale loose and gradually merges into the stems.
The cover ( peridia ) is coarse and consists of three interconnected layers. The outer one is smooth and shiny, the middle one is lighter, thicker and calcareous. The inner layer is membranous and almost hyaline. It is quite brittle and tears open irregularly or with lobes. The plasmodium is yellow.
Microscopic properties
The capillitium forms a three-dimensional coarse network similar to the genus Badhamia . It is calcareous and appears white, yellowish in transmitted light. It consists of tubes that are connected to each other with a fine network of hyaline and lime-free threads. The latter are fused with the inner peridia.
The spores appear black in bulk, brown in transmitted light. They are tinted a little lighter on one side and covered with noticeable warts. They are rounded in shape and measure (11) 12 to 14 (16) micrometers in diameter.
Similar species
The lion fruit can hardly be confused with other species. In passing, the fruiting bodies can be mistaken for insect eggs. Species of the genus Hemitrichia have differently shaped spore capsules as well as mostly yellow scalp and yellow spores.
ecology
The fruiting bodies appear from May to December. They are mainly found on the bark and on brushwood of coniferous wood or in their litter. The slime mold colonizes dead wood from deciduous trees, leaf litter or the stems of herbaceous plants less often. Socialization was observed with Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa , Arcyria cinerea , the yellow tan blossom (var. Rufa ), Didymium megalosporum and Physarum bethelii , among others .
distribution
The lion fruit is found worldwide and throughout Central Europe. In some areas it is to be found en masse.
Systematics
Some authors differentiate between three forms, which differ in the properties of the spores: two with free (12-14 or 15-18 µm) and one with clumps of two to four spores. These were observed in the Netherlands.
etymology
The scientific name of the genus is made up of the Greek words λεῖος (leĩos) 'smooth' and καρπὀς (karpós) 'fruit'. The epithet fragilis is Latin and means "fragile". The German name "Löwenfrüchtchen" is a translation error because the scientific name was wrongly traced back to the Latin leo "lion".
swell
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 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ W. Demon: Notes on the mushroom flora of the state of Salzburg (1). Linz biol. Contribution 33/2, 2001. P. 729. ( online ; PDF; 3.5 MB)
