Found on polytrichum and imaged at the OSU Electron Microscopy Facility
This was first seen by @smellyturkey who's observation you can see here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/200154535
I think I saw this species last year:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/154667088
Habitat: Moss (Most likely Brachythecium or some similar pleurocarp) growing in a shaded wall of concrete.
Most fruiting bodies are less than a cm and have basal mycelium on the moss.
The first microscopy photo is in Melzer's reagent and the second in KOH.
Currently spores seem to grow and germinate in culture.
1 small fruit body was sequenced, but does not match the previous sequence obtained for this species. I'm inclined to think that the original sequence was contaminated as it was taken from a not so clean culture. I will update this with additional culture and fruitbody sequences. That being said, I will not upload this to genbank until I know for certain that the sequence read is good.
On another note hopefully I can find this again or can get multiple collections of this. I'll have to check the spot from last year.
If new sequences keep coming back as novel and I can't find anything in the literature I will take a crack at describing this as a new species (So long as I can get more than just ITS)
Photo 1: mass of coralloid protonema bearing shoots with dwarf leaves and antheridia; photo 2: protonema and antheridia; photo 3: habitat, seasonally dry pond bed; photo 4: dark olive-green protonema mat on drying mud, with Riccia sorocarpa; photos 5 and 6: rhizoidal tubers on the protonema.
Widespread, dwarfed, in acid mire