Bisporella Citrina - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The species was originally described from Europe in 1789 by German naturalist August Batsch as Peziza citrina. Elias Fries sanctioned this name in the second volume of his Systema Mycologicum (1821). Jean Louis Émile Boudier transferred the species to Calycella in 1885. Another historical name for the fungus was derived from Johann Hedwig's 1789 Octospora citrina. Fries referred Hedwig's name to Helotium in 1846, and for several decades the fungus was known as either Calycella citrina or Helotium citrinum, depending on which generic concept an author accepted. In a 1974 publication, Richard Korf noted that the generic name Helotium competes with a basidiomycete genus of the same name, and under the rules of botanical nomenclature, the ascomycete version of the name had to be abandoned because the basidiomycete version was sanctioned by Fries in 1832, and thus had priority. He also pointed out that the generic name Calycella could not be used, as it is a synonym of an older name Calycina, which contains species that bear no taxonomic relationship to Helotium citrinum. Accordingly, he formally transferred Helotium citrinum to Bisporella, to produce the new combination Bisporella citrina. Korf further noted that since Bisporella was published by Pier Andrea Saccardo in 1884, it had priority over Boudier's 1885 Calycella. Calycella has since been folded into Bisporella.

The specific epithet citrina is derived from the Latin citrin, meaning "lemon yellow". Common names for the fungus include "yellow fairy cups", and the British Mycological Society-approved "lemon disco"; the name "disco" is short for Discomycetes, an older term for ascomycete species with disc- and cup-shaped fruit bodies. Samuel Frederick Gray called it the "lemon funnel-stool" in his 1821 work A Natural Arrangement of British Plants.