Ascocoryne albida  

Asexual morph synnematous, composed of a reddish brown irregularly cylindrical stipe 2.5-6 mm tall and ca 1 mm diam., and a roughly spherical to hemispherical white to pale grey or pinkish fertile head 1-3 mm diam. Stipe composed of an outer layer of angular to spherical thin-walled brown cells and an inner hyaline layer of narrow thin-walled intertwined hyphae within a gelatinous matrix, the stipe expanding in the upper part, stretched by the fertile mass of conidiophores. Fertile head composed of a complex repeatedly branched mass of conidiophores within a gelatinous matrix, the basal parts ± cylindrical and thin-walled, the upper branches often strongly swollen and moniliform, appearing ellipsoidal to globose, to ca 7.5 µm in length and diameter, the swelling very variable in extent (possibly a function of maturity). Conidiogenous cells 3.3-4.2 x 2.2-2.7 µm, in clusters of 4-8 from the upper part of the ultimate branches of the conidiophores, ovoid to pyriform, probably proliferating percurrently but with collarettes and periclinal thickening not visible. Conidia 3-3.5 x 1-1.2 µm, allantoid, aseptate, hyaline, thin- and smooth-walled, without a gelatinous sheath.
Apothecia to 10 mm diam., solitary or in small clusters, turbinate, the disc concave to flattened, light brown, drying black; exciple smooth, concolorous with the disc, differentiated anatomically into a brown hypothecium, a thick colourless zone of narrow hyaline hyphae sparsely interwoven in a gelatinous matrix and an outer layer of brown thin-walled isodiametric cells, 10-12 µm diam. Interascal tissue of paraphyses, slender, unbranched, slightly enlarged up to 5 µm diam. at the tip. Asci with a pore staining deep blue in Melzer's reagent, 8-spored. Ascospores uniseriate or biseriate above, 9-15 x 3.5-4 µm, cylindric-ellipsoidal, hyaline, often 1-septate, occasionally 2- or 3-septate.

Description of the teleomorph adapted from Dennis (1971).