|Major Groups > Crust Fungi > Peniophora rufa|
by Michael Kuo
Peniophora rufa is a distinctive crust fungus that forms small, bright red, cushion-shaped structures on the dead but still bark-covered branches and trunks of aspens, including quaking aspen and big-toothed aspen. Although a microscope is probably not needed in order to identify Peniophora rufa successfully, the fungus has fascinating microscopic features, including prominent gloeocystidia.
Ecology: Saprobic and apparently sometimes pathogenic on the wood of aspens (quaking aspen and big-toothed aspen), and occasionally on the wood of other hardwoods; erupting through the still-attached bark; spring, summer, and fall; fairly widely distributed where the host trees are present (northern and montane North America).
Fruiting Body: Resupinate; usually growing in patches of cushion-shaped individual fruiting bodies measuring up to about 1 cm across and 2 mm high; surface waxy, wrinkled, red to orange-red when fresh (sometimes with a whitish dusting), becoming purplish with age.
Flesh: Hard; whitish to grayish.
Spore Print: White.
Microscopic Features: Spores 6-9 x 2-3 µ; smooth; cylindrical to sausage-shaped; inamyloid. Basidia 4-sterigmate. Gloeocystidia pear-shaped to clavate; 10-25 µ across. Cystidia cylindric to fusiform; scarcely projecting; 5-8 µ wide; with encrusted apices. Hyphal system monomitic. Clamp connections present.
Cite this page as:
Kuo, M. (2009, February). Peniophora rufa. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/peniophora_rufa.html