Rhizina undulata
| Rhizina undulata | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Ascomycota |
| Class: | Pezizomycetes |
| Order: | Pezizales |
| Family: | Rhizinaceae |
| Genus: | Rhizina |
| Species: | R. undulata |
| Binomial name | |
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Rhizina undulata Fr. (1815) |
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| Synonyms | |
Rhizina undulata, commonly known as the doughnut fungus or the pine firefungus, is a species of fungus in the family Rhizinaceae. The fruit bodies of the fungus are dark purple brown with a bright yellow margin, crust-like and attached to the growing surface by numerous root-like yellow rhizoids. R. undulata has a cosmopolitan distribution, and commonly occurs on clearings or burned areas throughout central and northern Europe, North America, northern Asia, and southern Africa. It is parasitic on conifer seedlings, and has caused considerable damage to tree plantations worldwide.
The fungus was first described in 1774 as Helvella inflata by the German polymath Jacob Christian Schäffer. It acquired its current name in 1815 by virtue of its publication in Elias Magnus Fries's Observationes Mycologicae.
The specific epithet undulata means "wavy" or "undulating". Common names that have been used to refer to the species include "crust-like cup", "pine-fire cushion", "doughnut fungus", and "pine firefungus".
Fruit bodies, which may be up to 6 cm (2.4 in) wide, are flat, with irregular lobes, and are attached to the growing surface on the entire lower side by numerous whitish to yellowish rhizoids resembling plants roots. The hymenium is dark purple brown to blackish, while the margin is pale yellow (like the underside), and wavy and irregular. When moist, the surface is sticky. The fruit body has a leathery texture when old. In very young fruit bodies, the surface is white; the brown color initially appears in the center and expands rapidly thereafter.
The spores of Rhizina undulata are (fuse-shaped), apiculate, minutely verricose at maturity, with one or two oil drops, and have dimensions of 30–40 by 8–11 µm. The asci are roughly cylindrical, and 250–280 by 14–18 µm. Like most other Pezizales, the asci open at maturity by means of an apical, lid-like flap of tissue termed an operculum. The paraphyses are slightly club-shaped, tips encrusted with tubular setae, thin-walled, brown, aseptate and parallel-sided, tapering to a blunt point, and are 7–11 µm wide.
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