DESCRIPTION |
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Stromata clavate, turbinate, obconical, peltate,
discoid, restricted-pulvinate, or effused-pulvinate, usually gregarious, discrete, densely
aggregated, or fused into crust, bearing umboes or spines on top in certain species,
attached to substrate by simple or branched stipes or by narrow connectives, with entire
or crenate, thick or thin margins; mature stromata lacking KOH-extractable pigments;
surface plane or with inconspicuous perithecial mounds, smooth or with major cracks or
scales; carbonaceous tissue forming a thick crust immediately beneath surface; tissue
between and beneath perithecia whitish or grayish, coriaceous or woody, usually darkening
and disintegrating. Perithecia spherical to obovoid, distributed monostichously only on upper part of stromata. Ostioles higher than stromatal surface and with openings finely papillate, coarsely papillate, or conical. Asci eight-spored, cylindrical, stipitate, fugacious or persistent, with apical ring tubular, amyloid. Ascospores brown, dark brown, or blackish brown, unicellular, ellipsoid or fusoid, inequilateral, with acute, narrowly rounded, or broadly rounded ends, with straight or sigmoid germ slit spore-length to much less than spore-length on less convex side; perispore indehiscent in 10% KOH; epispore smooth. |