Tremella fuciformis Berk., Hooker’s Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany 8: 277 (1856)                     

Facesoffungi number: FoF 3146

Basidiocarps foliose, lobes caespitose, wet, gelatinous but fairly hard, crisped, composed of graceful lobes, lobes generally very thin, flower like, translucent whitish, up to about 8 cm across and 5 cm high, surface smooth and shiny, generally associated with Hypoxylon sp. Spore print white. Basidiospores 7–15 × 5–9 µm, Qm=1.2–1.6 µm, broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid, smooth, often germinating by repetition, budding or sometimes germ tubes. Basidia mostly 4–spored but occasionally 2 or 3 spored, becoming longitudinally 4–septate with maturity, probasidia typically clavate becoming subglobose to ellipsoid with maturity, 11–16 × 8–14 µm, with sterigmata up to 50 × 4 µm. Conidia absent. Vesicles absent. Hyphidia absent. Hyphae 2–6 µm diam. in inner part of basidiocarps, close to substrate 12 µm diam. Haustorial hyphae in basal part close to substrate, often branched. Clamp connections present.

Habit, habitat and distribution: Tremella fuciformis, following its host, fruit bodies are typically found on dead, attached or recently fallen branches of broadleaf trees. This fungus commonly prefers tropical and subtropical ecosystems, May to September. This species is mainly in tropical and subtropical ecosystems, but does occur temperate areas in Asia including Thailand; Laos and China, and North America. It is found in South and Central America, the Caribbean, parts of North America, sub-Saharan Africa, southern and eastern Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Our collection was found on a fallen dead tree branch near Hanthana Mountains Range, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

Specimens examined: SRI LANKA, Kandy District, Hanthana Mountains Range, 1 June 2012, Samantha C. Karunarathna (MFLU 12-1895, new record). GenBank number ITS:KY649468.

Notes: The species is distributed mainly tropical and subtropical areas, but extends into temperate areas in Asia and North America. It is known throughout South and Central America, the Caribbean, parts of North America, sub-Saharan Africa, southern and eastern Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. This is the first report of T. fuciformis with the molecular phylogenetic confirmation from Sri Lanka.

Phylogenetic relationships inferred from maximum parsimony analysis of ITS-rDNA sequences of 40 taxa. The percentages of replicate trees in which the associated taxa clustered together in the bootstrap test (1,000 replicates) are shown next to the branches. The tree is drawn to scale, with branch lengths in the same units as those of the evolutionary distances used to infer the phylogenetic tree. The new Sri Lankan record: Tremella fuciformis having GenBank number KY649461 and herbarium number MFLU 12-1895 is shown in bold and blue. The topology is rooted with Filobasidium floriforme. Evolutionary analysis was conducted in PAUP 4.0b 10.

 

Basidiocarps of Tremella fuciformis in the field (MFLU 12-1895).

 

Tremella fuciformis (MFLU 12-1895). a Basidia and attached basidiospores. b Basidiospores. c Structure of the inner part of the basidiocarp, hyphae are swollen, thick walled.