Neobulgaria pura

Morphological Features:

Ascocarp with a bibliographically referenced size of up to 4 cm in diameter, although we must note that the specimens collected by us did not exceed 2 cm in diameter. It is button-shaped or turbinate at inception, evolving into a convex shape, with a depressed center and an uplifted margin raised relative to the center. The sterile external surface is smooth when young, becoming somewhat wrinkled with age; its color ranges from shiny gray to pale brown, turning darker brown with age and finally black due to necrosis.

Hymenium lining the internal surface of the ascocarp, completely smooth and gray in color, sometimes exhibiting lilac or pinkish reflections when young.

Stipe absent; this is a sessile species.

Flesh thick relative to the small size of the species, grayish-white and translucent; the entire structure, both internally and externally, exhibits a gelatinous consistency. It has a strong odor, particularly in older specimens, and is completely tasteless.

Habitat:

This species generally grows in more or less numerous clusters, attached to the trunks and branches of various broadleaf trees, with a particular predilection for beeches. We have observed that it typically appears on minimally decayed trunks or branches, both in summer and during autumn. It is not a particularly common species, being frequent only in extensive beech forests.

Observations:

This species is characterized by its gelatinous appearance and translucent flesh, and by fruiting on dead beech trunks that still retain their bark. Due to its appearance, it might be mistaken for a Tremella, but we must remember that those are Phragmobasidiomycetes, not Ascomycetes. Ascotremella faginea shares certain similarities and even the same habitat; however, their microscopic differences are clear: its spores are striated, whereas those of the species presented here are smooth.