Fungi with moss as hosts

Are there any fungi which are specialised to have moss as hosts? . . . . .

As well as the bryoparasitic ascomycetes mentioned above, obvious basidio’s would be:

* members of the genus Galerina (difficult without specialist literature – the popular books generally feature on a handful of those which occur in this country); people on this site could help – you need details of spore ornamentation (oil!) and of the cystidia on gill edge and stem (handle carefully or these may disappear); also some are two-spored.

* members of the genus Rickenella – with experience these can be done in the field

* then there are odd members of genera like Hypholoma, Tephrocybe etc which have a moss-inhabiting lifestyle.

Hi Chris,

Moss ID to species is no problem for me, I’ve been doing bryology much longer than mycology. . . . .

In that case definitely have a go at the asco’s – if you get decent pic’s /measurements of spore ornamentation and know the host there are plenty of people on http://www.ascofrance.com/” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.ascofrance.com/ who are very knowledgeable about them and always willing to help. Keep an eye on Orthotrichum affine – look for unhealthy-looking areas and then have a bit of a ‘delve’ as the fungus occurs on the rhizoids – and you could get the 3rd British record (first in Sussex, this in Yorkshire, so it’s presumably all over the place even though only described in 2006!) of Octospora affinis:
[attachment=4]Octospora affinis01.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=3]Octospora affinis02.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=2]Octospora affinis03.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=1]Octospora affinis04.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=0]Octospora affinis05.jpg[/attachment]
Regards

Chris