TERFEZIA CISTOPHILA Ant. Rodr., Bordallo, V. Kaounas, & Morte
Phytotaxa 230 (3): 245 (2015)
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Macroscopic characters:
Ascomata: hypogeous to partially emergent at maturity, solitary or gregarious, 0.5–2 cm in size, subglobose, often with a basal depression bearing a mycelial tuft, sometimes with a rounded sterile base, light beige at first, becoming dark reddish-brown, with black spots, with some pitting at maturity, smooth.
Peridium: 150–400 µm thick, poorly delimited, pseudoparenchymatous, composed of subglobose cells, 10–60 µm diam, hyaline and thin-walled in the innermost layers, yellowish with thicker walls, up to 2.5 µm thick, in the outermost layers.
Gleba: solid, fleshy, succulent, whitish with greyish pockets at first, maturing to light ochre, darkening to pale brown at maturity, pockets of fertile tissue separated by whitish sterile veins, sometimes with pink-salmon spots.
Odour: faint, spermatic, more pronounced in young specimens.
Taste: mild.
Distribution, Habitat and Season:
Spain, Extremadura, in sandy, acid soils, associated with Cistus ladanifer, from April to May.
Greece, in acid soils, associated with Cistus monspeliensis and Cistus creticus, from February to April.
Notes:
Terfezia cistophila is a spiny-spored Terfezia species characterised by the intense blackening of the peridium, light ochre gleba, spermatic odour and occurrence in acid soils associated with Cistus spp. It differs from T. albida, the other spiny-spored species with spermatic odour, in growing in alkaline clay soils, and in having larger ascomata, white peridium, greyish-green gleba and larger spores. T. fanfani, T. pseudoleptoderma, T. extremadurensis, T. pini and T. leptoderma, the other spiny-spored species growing in acid soil, have larger spores with distinctly longer spines than T. cistophila and no distinctive odour. Furthermore, the new taxon is distinguished from the other species on the basis of ITS sequence identity.
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Microscopic characters:
Asci: nonamyloid, subglobose to ovate, sessile or short-stipitate, 55–65 x 45–50 µm, walls 1 µm thick, with 6–8 irregularly disposed spores, randomly arranged in the gleba.
Ascospores: globose, (16–)17–20(–21) µm diam (median = 18.5 µm) including ornament, 13–16 µm (median = 14.5 µm) without ornament, hyaline, smooth and uniguttulate at first, by maturity yellow ochre and ornamented with conical, separate, pointed, sometimes truncated spines, 1.5–2.5 µm long, 1 µm wide at the base.
 | Antonio Rodríguez trufamania@gmail.com antonio@trufamania.com |