Tulostoma brumale

Morphological Features:

Fertile head more or less globose in shape, possibly tending to flatten slightly at the base. It is very small in size, reaching barely 1.5 cm in diameter at most, and its color varies slightly within light tones, whitish or creamy with a somewhat greyish tinge, and slightly ochre at the apex. Dehiscence is precisely apical, occurring through a tubular peristoma highlighted by a perfectly defined ostiole and surrounded by a brownish-ochre circular zone.

Hymenium located inside the fertile head, where we find a gleba that, paradoxically, lacks a hymenial lining, within which the brownish basidiospores form in mass.

Stipe measuring between 1.5 and 4 cm in length by a couple of mm in thickness, initially whitish and soon becoming ochraceous, scaly or grooved, with a hard and tough consistency, fibrous, and hollow. It is cylindrical except perhaps at the base, which is usually somewhat bulbous due to the presence of abundant mycelial mass. It is commonly found practically buried in the substrate, leaving only the fertile head visible.

Flesh absent in the fertile head and very hard in the stipe; indeed, the transient nature of its exoperidium and the paper-like endoperidium only protect the spore mass, with no flesh whatsoever.

Habitat:

These specimens were found in the province of Bizkaia, on sandy ground with bryophytes near a holm oak woodland. It is not a common species in this area, but it is in other regions of our geography where it appears in groups. It has been located in autumn, fruiting almost year-round depending on latitude, which clearly contradicts its etymology, brumale = winter.

Observations:

This species is characterized by the presence at the apex of a well-defined ostiole with a tubular peristoma and by the surrounding halo. A very similar species is Tulostoma fimbriatum, differing from it by its apical zone with a poorly delimited and fringed ostiole, lacking a tube and the circular halo. Other species of its genus are less frequent, such as Tulostoma simulans, with a conical peristoma and a gleba with yellowish tones; Tulostoma giovanellae has spores with aligned warts, whereas Tulostoma squamosum differs by its lacerated stipe forming a kind of scales.