Description
Initially spherical, the fruit bodies are later shallowly saucer- or cup-shaped with rolled-in rims, and measure 2–5 cm (0.8–2.0 in) in diameter. The inner surface of the cup is deep red (fading to orange when dry) and smooth, while the outer surface is whitish and covered with a dense matted layer of tiny hairs (a tomentum). The stipe, when present, is stout and up to 4 cm (1.6 in) long (if deeply buried) by 0.3–0.7 cm (0.1–0.3 in) thick, and whitish, with a tomentum. Color variants of the fungus exist that have reduced or absent pigmentation; these forms may be orange, yellow, or even white (as in the variety albida). In the Netherlands, white fruit bodies have been found growing in the polders.
Sarcoscypha coccinea is one of several fungi whose fruit bodies have been noted to make a "puffing" sound—an audible manifestation of spore-discharge where thousands of asci simultaneously explode to release a cloud of spores.
Spores are 26–40 by 10–12 µm, elliptical, smooth, hyaline (translucent), and have small lipid droplets concentrated at either end. The droplets are refractive to light and visible with light microscopy. In older, dried specimens (such as herbarium material), the droplets may coalesce and hinder the identification of species. Depending on their geographical origin, the spores may have a delicate mucilaginous sheath or "envelope"; European specimens are devoid of an envelope while specimens from North America invariably have one.
The asci are long and cylindrical, and taper into a short stem-like base; they measure 300–375 by 14–16 µm. Although in most Pezizales all of the ascospores are formed simultaneously through delimitation by an inner and outer membrane, in S. coccinea the ascospores located in the basal parts of the ascus develop faster. The paraphyses (sterile filamentous hyphae present in the hymenium) are about 3 µm wide (and only slightly thickened at the apex), and contain red pigment granules.
Read more about this topic: Sarcoscypha Coccinea
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)