Sarcoscypha austriaca

[Simon Horsnall]

Found my first Sarcoscypha of the year yesterday and thought I would check it although I fall entirely within the range of S austriaca. On putting it under the microscope, the excipular hairs looked wavy. I started to get a little excited and moved towards the apothecial margin where the hairs were the more typical corkscrew shape. Has anybody else noticed this potential pitfall?

[Lancashire Lad]

Hi,

Not sure why you would think corkscrew excipular hairs would be a pitfall re S.austriaca?

Wavy to corkscrew excipular hairs are the norm for S.austriaca.

The description and key below are from page 13 of Field Mycology Journal, Volume 3(1), January 2002: –

Sarcoscypha (Fr.) Boud., 1885

Type: S. coccinea (Jacq.: Fr.) Lambotte

British species: S. austriaca (Beck: Sacc.) Boud. (= Lachnea austriaca Beck: Sacc.; Peziza imperialis Beck

1884 non Peck 1878); S. coccinea (Jacq.: Fr.) Lambotte (= Peziza coccinea Jacq.; Peziza insolita Cooke;

Geopyxis insolita (Cooke) Sacc.)

Literature: Baral (1984); Butterfill & Spooner (1995); Harrington (1990)

Apothecia sessile or stipitate, disc usually bright-coloured (scarlet to orange), rarely whitish, non-gelatinous,

externally hairy but lacking setae; mostly developed on woody substrata; spores smooth, symmetrical,

ellipsoid or oblong, sometimes indented at the poles, guttulate.

There are two British species, but it is only in recent years that the presence of S. austriaca in Britain

has been recognised. Macroscopically, this is virtually indistinguishable from S. coccinea, though may

differ slightly in habitat with a preference for Salix and Acer rather than Corylus and Fagus. Both species

develop apothecia in late winter and early spring. A recent study (Butterfill & Spooner, 1995) showed

that the relative abundance of these species has changed significantly in recent years.The once common

S. coccinea appears now to be much the rarer of the two, with only a dozen or so collections in the past

25 years.The cause of this change has not been established.

Key to British species of Sarcoscypha

1. Excipular hairs straight to slightly sinuous; ascospores mostly 9 – 12 μm wide, usually with rounded

ends, apparently never germinating to form conidia; paraphyses never moniliform . . . . . S. coccinea

1. Excipular hairs strongly sinuous to coiled and convoluted; ascospores mostly 11 – 14 μm wide,

usually truncate to indented at the ends, sometimes germinating to form conidia on short germ

tubes; paraphyses often moniliform below . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. S. austriaca

See also : – H.O. Baral, Tübingen, 2004 – The European and North-American Species of Sarcoscypha

http://www.gbif-mycology.de/HostedSites/Baral/Sarcoscypha.htm

Regards,

Mike.

[Simon Horsnall]

Thanks for that. I hadn’t realised there was the bit about “strongly sinuous” in the S austriaca description. Still, these weren’t particularly strongly sinuate. In the past, I have only come across corkscrew hairs and this looked different.

[Author]

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