Published January 5, 2021 | Version v1
Taxonomic treatment Open

Didymium atrichum Henney & Alexop.

  • 1. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science and Arts, Mustafa Kemal University, Hatay, Turkey.
  • 2. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science and Arts, Mustafa Kemal University, Hatay, Turkey. & fatmagundogdu 786 @ gmail. com; https: // orcid. org / 0000 - 0002 - 5246 - 7724
  • 3. Department of Food Processing, Bahçe Vocational School, Osmaniye Korkut Ata University, Osmaniye, Turkey. hayribaba _ 68 @ hotmail. com; http: // orcid. org / 0000 - 0002 - 1837 - 4321 & mustafasevindik @ osmaniye. edu. tr; http: // orcid. org / 0000 - 0001 - 7223 - 2220

Description

Didymium atrichum Henney & Alexop. (Fig. 4)

Sporocarps sessile, globose to plasmodiocarpous, scattered or clustered, 80–250 µm diam.; hypothallus conspicuous, gelatinous at first, slightly elevated when dry, sometimes resembling a short stalk; peridium membranous, sprinkled or covered with lime crystals; columella mostly absent, but sometimes rudimentary and then calcareous; capillitium absent; spore-mass black, spores mostly globose to subglobose, dark brown, 10–11 µm diam., spinulose or faintly reticulate under oil immersion, but conspicuously reticulate by SEM; phaneroplasmodium minute, milky white.

Comments:— In some sporangia of D. atrichum a calcareous mass at the base suggests a rudimentary columella reminiscent of that found sometimes in D. trachysporum. This and the fact that the latter species often has a scanty capillitium and spores on which the warts are often arranged in lines to form an inconspicuous reticulation, suggests a possible relationship between the two species. It is closer to that of D. trachysporum in that both these species have lime crystals united laterally into flattened discs (Henney et al. 1980).

D. atrichum has a very restricted distribution, since it was known previously only from North America and Africa. Because of the presence of crystalline lime on its peridium, this species is placed in the genus Didymium. The sporangia are produced either singly or in heaped clusters resembling pseudoaethalia, the often clustered sessile sporangia. The most distinctive taxonomic characters of this species are its rather small sessile sporophores 100–300 μm diam., the absence of a capillitium and spores that are faintly reticulate. The spores, using light microscopy appear minutely verrucose or faintly reticulate, but the scanning electron microscope reveals a conspicuous, sometimes broken reticulation (Henney et al. 1980, Stephenson et al. 2019).

Specimens examined:— Şahinbey, on dead leaves of Quercus sp., Baba 68, Oğuzeli, on dry leaves of Quercus sp., Baba 89.

World distribution:— Africa, USA.

Notes

Published as part of Baba, Hayri, Gündoğdu, Fatma & Sevindik, Mustafa, 2021, Myxomycetes biodiversity in Gaziantep Province (Turkey) with four new records, pp. 105-118 in Phytotaxa 478 (1) on pages 109-110, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.478.1.7, http://zenodo.org/record/5413072

Files

Files (2.6 kB)

Name Size Download all
md5:3f1268e0c0ca4748721cf37be033489b
2.6 kB Download

System files (11.4 kB)

Name Size Download all
md5:815c3edb8b046789d14bcfd1a2f7823e
11.4 kB Download

Linked records

Additional details

Biodiversity

Scientific name authorship
Henney & Alexop.
Kingdom
Protozoa
Phylum
Mycetozoa
Order
Physarales
Family
Physaraceae
Genus
Didymium
Species
atrichum
Taxon rank
species

References

  • Henney, M. R., Alexopoulos, C. J. & Scheetz, R. W. (1980) Didymium atrichum, a new myxomycete from south-central Texas. Mycotaxon 111: 150 - 164.
  • Stephenson, S., Basanta, W. S. L., Lado, C., Estrada-Torres, A. & Darrah, R. (2019) Myxomycete biodiversity revealed in the Namib desert. South African Journal of Botany 124: 402 - 413. https: // doi. org / 10.1016 / j. sajb. 2019.06.002