Neottiella rutilans

Bryophilous ascomycete associated with mosses of the genus Polytrichum, shallowly cup-shaped, 1–5 mm in diameter, bright vivid orange with a paler exterior, fruiting among moss directly on soil.

External hairs straight, thick-walled, septate, hyaline or containing faint ochraceous intracellular pigment, 100–200 µm long.

Medullary excipulum of textura intricata, hyaline, with hyphae 4–11 µm wide.

Ectal excipulum of thin-walled textura globulosa-angularis with cells 6–18 µm in diameter; the outermost layer supporting the hairs consists of cylindrical, thick-walled cells 18–35 µm long by 6–10 µm wide packed with carotenoid pigments that impart the vivid apothecial coloration.

Asci cylindrical, 8-spored, operculate, uniseriate, measuring 250–320 µm long by 17–21 µm wide, inamyloid in Melzer's reagent.

Paraphyses cylindrical, septate, apically slightly swollen (5–8 µm wide), densely filled with orange carotenoid granules turning dark greenish-blue in Melzer's or Lugol's reagent.

Ascospores ellipsoidal to slightly fusiform, hyaline, thin-walled, moderately verrucose to incompletely reticulate, measuring 20–26 µm long by 11–15 µm wide, with one or two large oil guttules inside, cyanophilic in cotton blue / lactophenol.

Herbarium material available: JTP2033/24.