Introduction to Fungi, Third Edition

OTHER REPRESENTATIVES OF THE HELOTIALES
445
nitrogen and phosphorus available to its host
plants which typically grow in situations characterized
by poor soils with acid pH. Good
accounts of ericoid mycorrhiza have been given
by Read (1996), Smith and Read (1997), Berch et al.
(2002) and Peterson et al. (2004).
15.5.4 Bulgariaceae
Bulgaria inquinans forms gelatinous black apothecia
on the bark of recently felled trees (Plate 7i),
especially oak (Quercus), chestnut (Castanea) and
beech (Fagus). Most unusually, the ripe ascus
always seems to contain melanized as well as
hyaline spores (Verkley, 1992). This species is
cosmopolitan, and it is possible that it
pre-colonizes the bark of the living tree as an
endophyte.
15.5.5 Cyttariaceae
This family contains some of the most unusual
and striking members of the Helotiales.
Cyttaria spp. live biotrophically on the southern
beech (Nothofagus). Orange-coloured apothecial
stromata which can attain the size of golf balls
arise singly or in clusters from galls on living
tree branches (Plate 7j). Each of the dimples at
the surface of the stroma represents a single
apothecium. The ascospores are dark grey to
black and continue to be discharged in great
numbers even after several days of storage of
detached stromata in dry conditions. Cyttaria spp.
occur wherever Nothofagus grows, especially in
South America, Australia and New Zealand. The
fruit bodies of some species are edible (Minter
et al., 1987). A review of this enigmatic family of
fungi has been given by Gamundí (1991).