Mucilago crustacea
| Mucilago crustacea | ||||||||||||
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Foam mushroom ( Mucilago crustacea ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Mucilago | ||||||||||||
| Battarra 1755 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Mucilago crustacea | ||||||||||||
| P. Micheli ex FH Wigg. 1780 |
Mucilago crustacea , sometimes also called foam mushroom or Grubiges upholstery cushion in German, is a slime mold ( Myxomycete ) from the Didymiidae family .
features
The ethers (fruiting bodies) sit directly on the substrate. They consist of loose or tightly standing tubes that are located on the protuberances of the membranous base ( hypothallus ). They have a coral-like shape and have branches. The ethers can reach a width of 10 cm and a height of 3, sometimes 5 cm. They completely enclose the substrate that they colonize. The color ranges from white to cream. After the crust (cortex) disappears, they turn gray to gray-black.
The hypothallus is colorless or cream-colored to white. Towards the tubes it is drawn out like a band. It is horn-like, spongy, porous and has crystalline lime.
The white to cream-colored, brittle cortex has a foamy, blistered shape and falls off quickly. It has star-shaped to irregularly rounded crystals . The peridia (wall of the spore body) of the originally numerous individual fructifications is delicate and white (dusted with lime) or iridescent (lime-free). It appears colorless in transmitted light. Later it tears up irregularly lengthways, whereby the remains can be frayed and thus form a pseudocapillitium. Occasionally, a fold of the peridia that extends deep into the fructification creates a pseudo columella . It is therefore designed as a wide, two-ply tape.
The Capillitium is a dense network of tight meshes and has a dark brown to almost black color. The individual threads have a diameter of up to 4 µm. They sometimes have nodular deposits and spindle-shaped thickenings. The tissue is widened at the branch points. It has free ends at which the fibers are pointed and appear colorless. The spores are black in bulk, violet-brown in transmitted light. They are spherical in shape and have a diameter of 10 to 18 µm. The surface is covered with up to 1 µm long warts and spines.
The plasmodium is cream-colored to yellowish. Immediately before the formation of fructifications it turns dark gray.
Species delimitation
Similar is Fuligo candida . However, it has an uneven, foamy or reticulated surface and no coral-like structure. In addition, it lacks the crystalline lime in the peridia.
Ecology and diffusion
Mucilago crustacea fructifies on various substrates. She prefers open locations such as meadow edges and plant stems or thin branches of shrubs such as B. the common hazel . The fructifications are from March to November, mainly in summer and autumn.
The slime mold is occasionally colonized by Acremonium spec., The conidium stage of Nectriopsis candicans .
Mucilago crustacea is a cosmopolitan . It is widespread in Central Europe, but is usually only found scattered. Only in places is the species more common.
Systematics
The genus Mucilago is monotypical .
Within the species a var. solida , the fructifications of which are particularly densely packed or partially merge with one another. The scalp is thinner and has numerous, often large, membranous widenings. The spores measure only 9 to 12 µm. They are darker and often have dense warts that are no longer than 0.5 µm long.
The unpublished taxon var. Dictyospora also exists . The spores are between 12 and 14 µm in size and have a fine-meshed, partially interrupted network structure.
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. 154 ff .