Truffle Genus: Stephanospora

Stephanospora caroticolor basidiospore scale = 15 µm

Kingdom: Fungi Phylum: Basidiomycota Order: Aphyllophorales Family: Stephanosporaceae

Spore Characters

Surface: Ornamented with spines and wedge-shaped projections up to 5 µm tall and a flaring collar around the spore attachment.
Shape and Size: Longitudinally symmetrical, broadly ellipsoid to subglobose, 7-16 x 6-12 µm; attachment straight, conspicuous.
Wall: Single, 0.5-1 µm thick.
Color in Water: Hyaline to pale yellow-brown.
Melzer's Reaction: Not distinctive.
Comments: Stephanospora is related by its distinctive spore ornamentation to saprotrophic wood-inhabiting fungi in the genus Lindtneria (Oberwinkler and Horak, 1979).

View photos of Stephanospora spores

Sporocarp Characters

Shape and Size: Subglobose to irregular, 0.5-2 cm broad.
Peridium: Yellow or orange, of loose hyphae, ephemeral.
Gleba: Gray-olive with small globose to irregular empty chambers, lacking any radial arrangement.
Odor: Not distinctive.

View photos of Stephanospora sporocarps

Name Derivation

Named by eminent French mycologist Narcisse Théophile Patouillard (1854-1926) (1914) from Greek stephano- (a crown) and -spora (seed or spore), hence "crowned spore" in reference to the crown-like collar that rings the spore attachment.

Distribution

Europe, the American tropics and the Southern Hemisphere, but so far not reported from North America.
Season: Summer or autumn.
Species known from North Temperate Forests: One described, S. caroticolor (Berk. and Broome) Pat., and possible others.

Keys and Descriptions

Zeller and Dodge (1935) describe the single northern species; Oberwinkler and Horak (1979) and Pegler and Young (1979) describe and present scanning electron photomicrographs of the spores.