Pragmopora sp. P4610
Anamorph: not known.
Teleomorph: ascomata apothecia, erumpent and becoming ± superficial, scattered or in small groups, (120-) 150-330 µm diam. when dry, swollen to ca 400 µm when rehydrated, irregularly pulvinate with the base usually somewhat constricted, black, glabrous, leathery to cartilaginous. Outer layer of the exciple of brown thick-walled hyphae, and the medulla composed of ± epidermoid cells, hypothecium dark brown. Hymenium 50-80 µm thick, yellowish in water mounts, with a very well-developed epithecial layer of dark red-brown amorphous tissue, dissolving to a yellow solution in KOH. Interascal tissue composed of thick-walled paraphyses, frequently branched especially in the upper portion and apparently sometimes encasing the asci, within a K/I+ blue matrix. Asci 48-57 x 8.5-9.5 µm, clavate-cylindrical, rather short-stalked, thick-walled and with an internal nipple-like invagination in the apex but not fissitunicate, apical ring not present, 8-spored. Ascospores arranged in a fascicle, sometimes ± helically coiled, 29-36 x 1.9-2.8 µm, very narrowly clavate, the apex obtuse and the base acuminate, 3- to 5-septate, hyaline, thin-walled, smooth, without a gelatinous sheath or appendages.
Close to Pragmopora bacillifera which has larger apothecia and much longer asci and paraphyses, and occurs on Picea. There was no report of a KI+ blue hymenium for that species, which has only been recorded once from GBI (VC89 E Perthshire, in 1906). All of these taxa are likely to be under-recorded.
On dead, fairly rotten wood of Pinus.
Recorded from a single site in VC3 S Devon.