A Taxonomic Study of Tremella in North America. Richard Kirk Speairs Jr Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1957 A Taxonomic Study of Tremella in North America. Richard Kirk Speairs Jr Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Speairs, Richard Kirk Jr, "A Taxonomic Study of Tremella in North America." (1957). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 204. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/204 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A TAXONOMIC STUDY OF TREMELLA IN NORTH AMERICA A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Botany, Bacteriology, and Plant Pathology by Richard Kirk Speairs, Jr. B.S. , Oklahoma A. fc M. College, 1941 M.S. , Louisiana State University, 1947 June, 1957 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The writer wishes to express his sincere appreciation to Dr. Bernard Lowy for his helpful suggestions and assistance throughout the various phases of this study. Thanks are extended to Dr, S. J. P. Chilton for making facilities available; to Dr. L. H. Flint for suggestions in the preparation of this manuscript, and to Dr. E. C. Tims for assistance in obtaining the photographs. Thanks are also tendered Drs. J. N. Couch and E. Kathleen Goldie-Smith of the University of North Carolina, Dr. Carroll W. Dodge of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and Mr. John A. Stevenson of the National Fungus Collections of the United States Department of Agriculture, all of whom made available the T re me 11a collections of their institutions. Especial thanks are due Dr. Donald P. Rogers of the New York Botanical Garden for not only the opportunity to study the Tremella collections of that organization, but also the privilege of examining his personal collections as well as the use of an extensive file of nomenclatural notes and bibliography of the genus studied. Ap preciation is also extended to the Southern Fellowship Fund for a grant to undertake this study. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page I. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................ ii II. LIST OF PLATES AND TABLE.......................................................... iv HI. ABSTRACT............................................................................................................ v IV. A TAXONOMIC STUDY OF TREMELLA IN NORTH AMERICA................................................................................................................ 1 V. DESCRIPTION OF THE GENUS.......................................................... 11 VI. KEY TO THE SPECIES. ..................................................... 12 Vn. DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES ............................................................. 14 Vm. SPECIES INQUIRENDUM.......................................................................... 77 IX. SPECIES REJJCIENDUM........................................................................... 77 X. NOMEN NUDUM................................................................................................. 78 XI. INDEX OF TREMELLA IN NORTH AMERICA...................... 79 XH. LITERATURE CITED................................................................................... 81 XIH. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE................................................................ 85 iii LIST OF PLATES AND TABLE PLATES Page I. A - C. Tremella fimbriata. ........................................................................ 26 II. A. Tremella fimbriata. ................................ 27 B. Tremella mycophaga C. Tremella encephala III. A - D. Tremella lute sc e n e . .......................................................................... 41 E - F. Tremella fuciformis IV. A. Tremella aspera................................................................................ 67 B. Tremella reticulata C. Tremella aurantia D. Tremella lutescens TABLE I. Informational Summary of Tremella in North America. ................................... 10 iv ABSTRACT This work is a taxonomic study of the genus Tremella in North America. Examinations of over three hundred and fifty specimens from four mycological herbaria, and a review of the literature have shown nineteen valid species of Tremella to be present. A key has been pre pared for these species. The synonyms, description, type locality, habitat, distribution, illustrations, and specimens examined of each of these species are given. Variations within the species, T* lutescens and T. me sente rica were found to be of such magnitude that often inter gradation of so-called distinguishing characteristics occurred. Absence of any adequate single differentiating characteristic was noted. Original descriptions and subsequent collections and descriptions of T. fimbriata, T. foliacea, and T. frondosa were reviewed noting emphasis placed on substrate, color, and minor morphological differences, none of which were constant and peculiar to a particular species, ft is concluded here that Tremella mesenterica is synonymous with T. lutescens, and that T. foliacea and T. frondosa are synonyms which should be cited as T. fimbriata Fries. Stratification of the various species was studied and found to be of limited use. The status of fifty-seven species names of fungi re corded in the literature in North America as Tremella was determined. Fifty-four such names are assignable as synonyms to other genera, one name is a species rejiciendum, another a nomen nudum, while a third is a species inquirendum. Ten of the nineteen species of Tremella indigenous to North America have been found in jLouisiana. One or more of the nineteen species have been found in thirty-four states of the United States. A TAXONOMIC STUDY OF TREMELLA IN NORTH AMERICA The genus Tremella, a heterobasidiomycete of the order Tremellales ("Jelly fungi"), is one of 15 genera found in North America which share the characteristics of the family Tremellaceae, sum marized by Martin (2 6) as follows: "Gelatinous, waxy or semi-arid; probasidia globose, ovate or elliptical, divided by a longitudinal or oblique pri mary septum, each cell so formed divided by a secondary longitudinal septum at right angles to the first and each of the cells so formed sending out a tubular epibasidium, short in the waxy and more arid species, long in the gelatinous forms and often swollen at the tip below the sterigma. "Irregularities in septation are not infrequent; two- celled and three-celled hypobasidia are commonly seen, and the secondary septa, and occasionally the primary septum may be strongly oblique or more or less trans verse, As a rule , however, the great majority of basidia seen are of the usual 'cruciate-septate * type, so-called because when seen from above the septa form a cross. " Linder (17) considered Tremella the most primitive genus, since the basidiospores produce secondary basidiospores closely re sembling those of rusts. Exidia with the sickle-shaped secondary basidiospores was derived from this genus. Sebacina also comes from Tremella, through the assumption of the resupinate habit of growth. Kobayasi (15) indicated diagramatically the closeness of PhlogiotiB to Tremella. There is also strong affinity between Tremella and Gloeotremera (9). These five genera are all similar in having cruciate-septate basidia. 1 2 As Martin (26) noted, the allantoid spores, always white in mass, thy tough hymenial surface layer, and the sterile warts, when present, separate Exidia from Tremella. Phlogiotis, characterized by a fructification erect, substipitate, infundibuliform or often uni lateral and somewhat spathulate with hymenium inferior, is thus dis tinguished from the convoluted, cerebriform, or foliaceous amphigenous fructifications of Tremella. Gloeotromera is characterized by the pre sence of gloeocystidia which are subcylindric, flexous, hyaline or granular, at length yellowish and originating below the basidia. Such structures are lacking in Tremella. During the past two centuries the "jelly fungi" have interested mycologists, and have created nomenclatural and taxonomic problems. As implied by the name, the group is characterized by their more or less gelatinous consistency although some genera do not conform in this respect. The genus Tremella, so named by the German naturalist, Johann Jokab Dillenius in 1741 in Historia Museorum because of its soft, tough, quivering texture, was conceived in a very wide sense. This generic name was also applied to gelatinous fungi by Bulliard (4) and Hudson (14). Looney (21) observed that Pre-Friesian authors generally included in it nostocs, lichens, tubercularias and even Gymnosporangium. Persoon (39) in his Synopsis Methodica Fungorum was the first to make a fairly practicable classification of the group, and also the first to ex clude forms now considered as algae. Gilbert (11) maintained that this 3 placed Persoon far in advance of his contemporaries, but that on the other hand, his inclusion of the group with ascomycetous genera noted shows how little he had on which to base a natural classification. In 1823 Elias Magnus Fries in Systema Mycologicum