Licea castanea Lister (1911: 61)

Bortnikov, Fedor M., Gmoshinskiy, Vladimir I. & Novozhilov, Yuri K., 2022, Species of Licea Schrad. (Myxomycetes) in Kedrovaya Pad State Nature Biosphere Reserve (Far East, Russia), including two new species, Phytotaxa 541 (1), pp. 21-48 : 27

Licea castanea Lister (1911: 61) . Fig. 5 .

Material examined:— LOC 17 ( MYX 10162, MYX 10165, MYX 10171) .

Habitat:—bark of living trees ( Chosenia arbutifolia ), pH: 6.59–6.86 (n = 3).

Notes:—The distinguishing features of this species are rounded pulvinated to elongated sporocarps of chestnutbrown color with lighter dehiscence lines; the peridial plates whose margins are marked with small warts; spores smooth from pale olive to brown in mass, 8–12 µm in diameter ( Lister 1911; Martin & Alexopoulos 1969). Our specimens are generally consistent with the species description ( Lister 1911; Martin & Alexopoulos 1969) and have sporocarps 0.13–0.23 mm in diameter, dehisce by plates, whose margins are marked by pale warts of irregular size and shape and spores 9.6–10.6 µm in diameter. Under SEM, the inner peridium surface has ornamentation consisting of irregularly arranged, winding, or angular rounded muri of varying thickness. The ornament elements do not form a distinct reticulum, but rather a maze-like pattern and with rounded, almost smooth dents at the points of contact with the spores.

Figures

FIGURE 5. Licea castanea (MYX10162: a; MYX10171: b–i). a–d: Sporocarps. e: Peridium and spores by TL. f: Spores by TL. g: Spores under SEM. h–i: Inner peridium and ornamentation of the peridial plate margins. Scale bars: a–d = 100 µm, e, f, h = 10 µm, g, i = 5 µm.