Godronia fuliginosa  

A tiny (0.5-1.2 mm diam.) brown discomycete with urceolate (urn-shaped) fruitbodies forming large patches or crusts of fruitbodies, together with a black globose-to-ovoid (egg-shaped) pycnidial anamorph 0.1-0.5 mm diam., on Salix twigs, potentially associated with cankers.

Anamorph:  Pycnidia (conidial sporocarps) erumpent, densely gregarious, separate to subcespitose (in small tufts), more or less globose to ovoid, black, glabrous (smooth), about 0.1-0.5 mm in diameter, similar in consistency to the apothecia; tissue a mixture of textura epidermoidea and textura angularis composed of yellow-brown to dark brown cells, 3-10 μm in diameter and similar interwoven hyphae 3-5 μm in diameter, becoming more parallel above and forming a textura prismatica to textura oblita in the wall surrounding the cavity; hyphae yellowish, 4-5 μm in diameter; cavity subglobose to more or less lobed, tearing open at the top; conidiophores cylindric-subulate, septate, simple or branched, about 6-25 X 2.0-2.5 μm or longer; conidia hyaline, elongate-fusiform, straight or curved, mostly three-septate, (18) 20-30 (36) X (2.0) 2.5-3.5 μm; microconidia hyaline, one-celled, ellipsoid, 3.0-4.0 (5.0) X 2.0-3.0 μm. Formerly known as Topospora fuliginosa.

Teleomorph: Apothecia erumpent, densely gregarious to cespitose (clumped) in effused patches, sometimes more scattered or singly among the conidial fruiting bodies in cankered areas, at first subglobose, opening circularly and becoming urceolate, with margin fimbriate (with hair-like projections), sessile (without a stalk) or narrowed below to substipitate (somewhat stalked), 0.5-1.2 mm in diameter and about the same in height, dark reddish brown to blackish, more or less fibrillose-striate (with fine parallel fibres) to slightly ridged, somewhat furfuraceous (covered in slight bran-like scales), hard, coriaceous (leathery) and waxy in consistency, more coriaceous-fleshy when moist; hymenium (fertile layer) concave, grayish to whitish, more fleshy than the excipulum; tissue of the basal stroma textura epidermoidea composed of yellowish brown to dark brown hyphae, mostly about 4-6 μm in diameter with some larger cells; medullary excipulum (tissue below the hymenium but above the basal stroma) textura angularis, composed of black to brownish black, irregular cells mostly about 4-12 μm in diameter, sometimes larger, forming an extensive zone subtending the hymenium and extending up around it, the cells becoming more elongated in the area around the hymenium and becoming textura prismatica; ectal excipulum textura oblita composed of thick-walled, yellowish hyphae about 4-6 μm in diameter, the outer rows darker and thinner-walled; hypothecium (dense hyphal tissue just below the hymenium) a zone of closely interwoven, hyaline hyphae about 2-3 μm in diameter; asci cylindric to cylindric-clavate (thicker at the apex than the base), tapering below to a slender stalk, eight-spored, pore blue with iodine, (90) 105-135 (150) X (8) 9-12 (14) μm; ascospores hyaline (translucent), filiform (thread-like), more or less curved to nearly straight, pointed at ends, mostly five- to seven- (nine-) septate, fasciculate (growing in bundles) to somewhat interwoven in the ascus, (40) 55-50 (90) X (1.5) 2.0-3.5 (4.0) μm; paraphyses hyaline (translucent), filiform (thread-like), septate, simple or branched, 1.5-2.5 μm in diameter, the tips not or very slightly swollen, not forming an epithecium (solid layer over the hymenium).

Adapted from Groves (1965). "The genus Godronia." Canadian Journal of Botany 43, 10:1195-1276.

Also see A Grammatical Dictionary of Botanical Latin for further definitions, particularly of the various types of tissue types (e.g. the different types of 'textura.').