A whitish, waxy crust fungus of the jelly-fungus order Auriculariales that grows on fallen branches of many broadleaved trees and shrubs. Small round patches with turned-up, brown, finely felty margins run together into crusts several centimetres long. Malysheva & Spirin (2017) treat Eichleriella incarnata, the type species of the genus, as this same species, so this entry stands for the genus type.
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Habitat
Saprobe on fallen branches of broadleaved trees and shrubs. Recorded hosts include holm oak and other oaks (Quercus ilex, Q. faginea, Q. ballota), beech, hornbeam, willows (Salix caprea, S. nigricans), Populus pruinosa, almond, hawthorn, Robinia, white mulberry, Berberis, Colutea, Genista and Retama.
Distribution
Europe (Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain), the USA (Arizona, Texas) and Central Asia (Tajikistan, Turkmenistan), per records compiled by Saitta (2015).
Characteristics
Description from an Italian collection (Saitta 2015). Fruit body: resupinate with reflexed edges; round to lobed patches up to 2 cm, merging to 5-6 cm; white. Margin: reflexed, sterile side ochraceous to reddish-brown and finely felty, darker near the wood. Hymenium: smooth to finely granular, white, turning light grey and cracking when dry; covered by abundant dendrohyphidia. Trama: inflated, double-walled cells, sometimes encrusted with crystals. Basidia: longitudinally septate type; probasidia cylindrical to club-shaped, hypobasidia oval to obovate, epibasidia tubular, up to 60 µm long. Spores: allantoid (sausage-shaped), smooth, hyaline, with oil drops, inamyloid, 13-16(-17.5) x 5.5-6.5(-7) µm.
