Orbilia xanthostigma is a tiny cup fungus that forms crowded groups of translucent, waxy, light yellow to golden-yellow discs, usually under 1 mm across, on moist, bare dead wood. It is one of the most frequently recorded Orbilia species and is treated as the type of the genus. DNA studies show that what has been called O. xanthostigma worldwide is an aggregate of several cryptic species. It is not a nematode trapper as far as the sources show, and it has no food or cultivation use.
Not edible; far too small to be of any food value.
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Gregarious on decorticated, moist wood of both conifers and broadleaf trees, rarely on bark (Baral et al.); records include hardwood, oak and pine logs.
Distribution
Reported worldwide (as an aggregate of cryptic species): Europe, Macaronesia, North America (e.g. East and Central Texas) and elsewhere. Some Chinese specimens once reported under this name proved to be O. epipora (Liu et al. 2006).
Characteristics
Apothecia: 0.5-1 mm, light yellow (golden yellow to yellow-orange in Fries's description), waxy and translucent, gregarious. Asci: polysporous (up to 36 spores per ascus per Mycopedia), with a truncate apex. Ascospores: small, allantoid (kidney- to worm-shaped), with small oil drops; spore-wall ornamentation is known in this species (Pfister 2015). Paraphyses: capitate. Asexual morph: dicranidion-like.
