Amniculicola lignicola
Anamorph: not known.
Teleomorph: ascomata 350–450 mm high and 300–500 µm diam., scattered or in small groups, initially immersed, becoming erumpent to nearly superficial, with the basal wall remaining immersed in host tissue, subglobose, sometimes laterally flattened, black, the srrounding wood tissues stained purple. Ostiole with two minutely flared lips surrounding a slit-like ostiole, 100–150 µm diam. Peridium 40–55 µm thick laterally, to 120 µm thick at the apex, coriaceous, with an outer layer of small heavily pigmented thick-walled angular cells and an inner layer composed of hyaline thin-walled cells. Interascal tissue of branched and anastomosed pseudoparaphyses ca 1 µm diam., embedded in a gelatinous matrix. Asci 110-145 x 11-12.5 µm, cylindrical, short-stalked, thick-walled and fissitunicate, with a broad shallow ocular chamber, 8-spored. Ascospores arranged obliquely uniseriately to biseriately, 25-29 x 6-7.5 µm, fusiform with acute to obtuse apices, initially 1-septate and deeply constricted at the septum, each cell with 2(-3) large guttules, also constricted between the guttules and with secondary septa sometimes developing at maturity, colourless, smooth, surrounded by a gelatinous sheath 4-6 µm diam.
Description adapted in part from Zhang et al. (2008).
Not assessed; only known from one GBI site, but likely to be under-recorded.
Morphological distinctions between the three known species of Amniculicola are not well-defined; the degree of immersion of the ascomata is variable and depends on the degree of degradation of the surrounding tissues. The collection described and illustrated here is named as A. lignicola partly as the earliest-described species of the genus.
On a dead submerged branch of Salix sp. in a stream.
Known from a single site in VC17 Surrey, close to the border with VC13 W Sussex.