Urnula

Urnula
The devil's urn, Urnula craterium
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Fungi
Division:	Ascomycota
Class:	Pezizomycetes
Order:	Pezizales
Family:	Sarcosomataceae
Genus:	Urnula Fr. (1849)
Type species
Urnula craterium (Schwein.) Fr. (1851)
Species
10 species

10 species

Urnula is a genus of cup fungi in the family Sarcosomataceae, circumscribed by Elias Magnus Fries in 1849. The genus contains several species found in Asia, Europe, Greenland, and North America. Sarcosomataceae fungi produce dark-colored (brown to black), shallow to deep funnel-shaped fruitbodies with or without a stipe, growing in spring. The type species of the genus is Urnula craterium, commonly known as the devil's urn or the gray urn. Urnula species can grow as saprobes or parasites having an anamorphic state. The anamorphic form of U. craterium causes Strumella canker, on oak trees.

Elias Magnus Fries circumscribed the new genus Urnula in 1849, and set what was then known as Peziza craterium as the type species. The genus name means "little urn"; the specific epithet is derived from the Latin cratera, referring to a type of bowl used in antiquity.

The life cycle of Urnula craterium allows for both an imperfect (making asexual spores, or conidia) or perfect (making sexual spores) form; as has often happened in fungal taxonomy, the imperfect form was given a different name, because the relationship between the perfect and imperfect forms of the same species was not then known. The imperfect stage of Urnula craterium is the plant pathogenic species Conoplea globosa, known to cause a canker disease (Strumella canker) of oak and several other hardwoods.

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Wikipedia